SIXTH COLUMN

First New Message In Almost A Year

2007-05-27T16:29:00.000-07:00

We moved almost a year ago from Google and Blogger to TypePad. Now we have changed our name and expanded what we are doing. Since a significant number of readers use this site daily, we need to keep everyone current.

Our new blog is now known as Brushfires of Freedom. It moved over with the same name as this blog, namely Sixth Column, until mid-May 2007. Please note, however, that although the name changed, the blog url and email addresses stayed the same--to minimize confusion and people not finding us. Also, please note that our website, 6th Column Against Jihad, has neither changed name or address.

Brushfires of Freedom has a couple of auxiliary blogs: The New Enlightenment and Nous America. Each operates hand in glove with Brushfires. Nous American, however, focuses on the thises and thats of our culture, such as movies, television, art matters, cultural vexations and kudos. The New Enlightenment parallels Brushfires of Freedom with exploration of the ideas which further and those which sabotage our culture. We expanded the focus of Brushfires at the time of the name change so that we could deal with more than Islamic and illegal alien matters. Both of these topics are as important as ever, but the fifth columns work numerous venues, and we as a sixth column have a lot of territory to cover in service to America. We will still be going after Islamic matters and illegal matters.

We are very proud of two new blogs. Our long time friend and colleague Eleanor now has her own blog, Eleanor Duckwall's Spotlight. She finds the best articles and puts her unique interpretation to them. Our colleague Cubed has started her educationally focused blog, Project Education Renovation, in order to get the right stuff out where it really counts, before kids become stick-in-the-mud adults.

Come on over, anytime, and stay as long as you like.

WE HAVE COMPLETED OUR MOVE TO OUR NEW ADDRESS

2006-07-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

As of 1 July 2006, Sixth Column has fully relocated to its new address (http://sixthcolumn.typepad.com/sixth_column/). Same name, different url. The old, Blogger site is being retained solely for readers missing earlier moving announcements to learn our new address, and to keep the archives available. We anticipate keeping this old site available for a few weeks until we relocated the archives to our website 6th Column Against Jihad.

Please join us at our new home.

For the cognitively blind

2006-06-23T10:36:00.000-07:00

It is time once more for another treatment for the cognitively blind. You know, there's psychogenic blindness, ocular blindness, and cortical blindness. The worst and most wide-spread is cognitive blindness.

Cognitive blindness refers to that huge gaggle of people who either will not see or will not allow themselves to see the facts of reality. Some will tell themselves that what they see cannot be true, but most will tell themselves that they will not allow themselves to see what they do not want to be true.

Reality, nevertheless, marches on. Overnight, seven ne'erdowells were arrested in the most inappropriately named "Liberty City" section of Miami, Florida. (If there ever was a place to insert the tube to give the earth an enema, Liberty City would be it.)

Why? The are a terror cell. They are made of the homegrown and a few Haitian imports. Among other targets, they wanted to take down the Sears Tower in Chicago and precipitate a state of total war within America.

Although they swore allegiance to Al Qaeda, they are not Al Qaeda.

They are, however, converts to ISLAM. Now watch the cognitively blind head for their blinders and eye patches not to see Islam as THE COMMON DENOMINATOR in all of this so-called "terror."

It is not some adjectivized Islam, such as "radical" Islam. No siree, it is just plain Islam, just as it has been all along. Islam unites all these ne'erdowells worldwide, from all flavors of culture.

So, for today, here is the treatment for the cognitively blind. Repeat:

It is Islam, stupid.
It is Islam, stupid.
It is Islam, stupid.

NEW FOR JUNE 2006 ON 6TH COLUMN AGAINST JIHAD

2006-06-23T06:40:00.000-07:00

NEW FOR JUNE 2006 ON OUR WEBSITE, 6TH COLUMN AGAINST JIHAD (see website for hot links)

ANNOUNCEMENTS: We have many changes afoot, and more to come:

We are moving our blog, Sixth Column, to its new host with its new address, effective 1 July 2006.

The old site of Sixth Column will remain solely for the archives, until we can successfully export them to the new URL.

The new site of Sixth Column will have a new email address.

The website, 6th Column Against Jihad, is changing its email address to 6thCAJ@6thColumnAgainstJihad.Com.

We have established another blog for the topics not really "on topic" for this website and Sixth Column: The New Enlightenment.

New division pages both for Noteworthy and Hatred of the Angels.

Folding Commentary pages into the Noteworthy folder page.

Further additions are under development but are not ready for publicizing.

ARTICLES

o From George Mason, Getting Into Their Minds III: How Does Islam Do It?, an
astonishingly perceptive article by Laurent Murawiec, Deterring Those Who Are Already Dead?

o From Jane Scully, Hatred of the Angels, Chapter 6: The Emir of Rome.

o From Jacob Thomas, The Constants and Conditions of “Gulf” Islam and Muslims Questioning Islam.

o From Flemming Rose (courtesy Der Spiegel), Why I Published the Muhammad Cartoons.

o From the Halls of Montezuma to the Halls of Shame, U.S. Marines Build Shrine to Islam.

o Humor on They Said It, What if Other Religions Had Muslim Values?

o Another fabulous article about a Founding Father from David McCullough, A Man Worth Knowing.

o Unique analyses of current events on our ongoing blog, SIXTH COLUMN, and topics not covered usually on Sixth Column and 6th Column Against Jihad now on The New Enlghtenment blog.

CONTINUING FROM MAY 2006

From George Mason, How Does Islam Do It (I)? The Basics.

From Jason Pappas of Liberty and Culture, Two Methods of Attack, on Commentary

From Jane Scully, Hatred of the Angels, Chapter 5, Two Souls . (An original novel about
Eurabia, of tomorrow)

From Always on Watch blog, Islam and the Criminal Mind

New from D.C. Watson, Review of and Chapter from his new book, TRUTH IS NOT BIGOTRY: Sometimes it just hurts

New Archives, on site and off site

New Links on Recommended page

New GRAPHICS

And, as always, outstanding daily analyses on Sixth Column

The Meaning of the "Tipping Point" in Iraq

2006-06-22T11:15:00.000-07:00

Only the comatose could not know about the seizure, torture, mutilations and deaths of the two American soldiers recently in the Sunni Triangle of Iraq. Every effort made by our military to gather intelligence from the indigenous population of the seizure area has been met by stony silence. Conversely, most Americans--not the pansy Left--want blood and action to avenge our soldiers, while the vicious bad guys watch to see if we are going to stand up for ourselves. So far, the Bush administration, including the DoD, have done nothing and said only the equivalent of "Tsk, tsk, what a shame."

What Al-Qaeda did to our soldiers brought the entire Bush expedition in Iraq to its MOST CRITICAL POINT.

What we do at this point, or opportunity, will determine our ENTIRE FUTURE in Iraq and the Middle East. Call this point what you will, but the name "tipping point" names it superbly.

More of the usual from Bush et al, a la "just war theory," and we may as well come home now. We will have lost and guaranteed fighting Islam and its jihad on the streets of America. (And, no, Bill O'Reilly, this is not "theoretical.")

We will be perceived--correctly--as a toothless, senescent, and weak tiger, easily defeated, just by persistence. This type of response will guarantee that we will bleed much more money and squander many more troops through maiming and death to no good end. Once again, we will have committed national suicide on the altar of righteous, self-sacrificial service to others. While such sacrifice makes far too many Americans glow in inner warmth, it handcuffs our fighting and national security because it keeps us from pursuing our own highly appropriate and proper national self-interest. We might as well throw our personnel and money into Uday's infamous people shredder.

If we punish the holy hell out of these Sunnis, we will be able to pull off a win--despite Bush, DoD, State Department, and all of the "just war theory" stuffed generals. We should have already begun meting out severe and unremitting punishment to take away their will to fight and support the fighting.

Iraq has come down to this tipping point. It has come down to one final roll of the dice, thanks to all the bungling since March 2003. Iran and North Korea are watching, as is the rest of Islamia.

If we are to fight, we must fight to win decisively and quickly through total war. That is what a truly "just war" means.

Iraq rides now fully on the near term behavior of G. W. Bush and his ilk.

They Gouged Out Their Eyes. . .

2006-06-21T06:21:00.000-07:00

The tortured bodies of two of our soldiers were found in Iraq days after they were set up and kidnapped. Many speculate that they were beheaded, and Bill O'Reilly said that their eyes had been gouged out. While DNA studies are always done on the bodies of military people killed in battle, there has been further speculation that the degree of mutilation that they suffered was so great that DNA tests were required to be sure of their identity. Unless their fingers were cut off too, making fingerprinting impossible, and unless their teeth were removed, it is quite probable that identification was made through prints or dental records even if their appearance was otherwise severely altered by their captors.

Many of us imagine that the MSM are merely trying to "protect our sensibilities" by failing to report on the details of such incidents.

What is happening is, in fact, is an attempt by the Politcally Correct crowd to hide from us those details so that we don't get so angry that we will demand justice for the murderers.

After all, if we became angry enough, we might even recall that these "people" were never signatories to any of the Geneva Conventions. We might further remember that we have never officially declared war against Islam, "the enemy who must not be named."

Does this mean that we have to descend to their contemptably primitive level of thought and behavior? Of course not; but neither does it mean that we have to wear gloves so as not to sully their War Manual while handing them out in our retention centers.

"Fair" and "just" are not the same as "stupid."

Some Forward Progress Re: Illegal Aliens

2006-06-21T05:53:00.000-07:00

Common sense is beginning to assert itself here and there; who knows - if we can get someone like Tom Tancredo into the Oval Office by 2008, maybe we can even stop the sacrifice of the United States on the altar of the North American Union!

Here's a little good news:

House Immigration Reform Caucus Now 101 Members Strong

Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) announced Friday that the House Immigration Reform Caucus (IRC), which he chairs, is now more than 100 Members strong. When Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-CA) was sworn into office last week, he immediately re-joined the caucus and he was joined by Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH), Rep. John Campbell (R-CA), Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX), Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY) and Rep. Charlie Bass (R-NH).

Rep. Tancredo stated, "As the IRC has grown, so has the illegal immigration issue in Americans' consciousness. When I started the Caucus in 1999, we had few friends and allies in Congress. Today, the IRC is one of the largest and most active caucuses in the House. Our size and the force of our arguments dictate that we have a seat at the table."

If one of these House Members represents you, call their office to thank them for standing with 100 other Members of the House who want our borders secured and to end illegal immigration!

At Last! A Congressman Is Taking Notice of the North American Union!

2006-06-20T19:33:00.000-07:00

Just as he did with the scandalous agreement arrived at behind closed doors, out of sight of the Congress and the people of the United States, whereby contracts for the managment of several major port facilities would have been quietly handed over to the Islamic state of Dubai, President Bush is now quietly trying to sneak past us measures that would effectively destroy the sovereignty of the United States.

This time, he is racing to complete the creation of the North American Union, a single political-economic-military fusion of Mexico, Canada, and the United States. Passports would no longer be needed, the currencies of each country would be replaced by the "Amero," US institutions would be reborn as a single North American Union banking system, a single court/justice system, a single military system, a single executive system, a single customs office, and a single North American Union parliamentary group.

Fortunately, at least one Congressman, Tom Tancredo (R-CO) is paying attention. Here's what he's trying to do for us:

congress senate illegal Immigration Laws

Demands full disclosure of White House work with Mexico, Canada!

Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., is demanding the Bush administration fully disclose the activities of an office implementing a trilateral agreement with Mexico and Canada that apparently could lead to a North American union, despite having no authorization from Congress.

Topics: Baylor, CFR, Council on Foreign Relations, Building a North American Community, illegal immigration, open borders, American Republic.

As WND reported, the White House has established working groups, under the North American Free Trade Agreement office in the Department of Commerce, to implement the Security and Prosperity Partnership, or SPP, signed by President Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox and then-Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Texas, on March 23, 2005. The groups, however, have no authorization from Congress and have not disclosed the results of their work despite two years of massive effort within the executive branches of the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

Tancredo wants to know the membership of the SPP groups along with their various trilateral "memoranda of understanding" and "other agreements" reached with counterparts in Mexico and Canada. Tancredo's decision has been endorsed by Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project. "It's time the Bush administration to come clean," Gilchrist told WND. "If President Bush's agenda is to establish a new North American union government to supersede the sovereignty of the United States, then the president has an obligation to tell this to the American people directly. The American public has a right to know."

Geri Word, who heads the SPP office, told WND the work had not been disclosed because, "We did not want to get the contact people of the working groups distracted by calls from the public." WND can find no specific congressional legislation authorizing the SPP working groups nor any congressional committees taking charge of oversight. Many SPP working groups appear to be working toward achieving specific objectives as defined by a May 2005 Council on Foreign Relations task force report, which presented a blueprint for expanding the SPP agreement into a North American union that would merge the U.S., Canada and Mexico into a new governmental form.

A New 9/11 Memorial

2006-06-20T18:13:00.000-07:00

Folks,

I just came back from visiting a site that is proposing a project that may interest many of you. "D" is recruiting 2996 volunteers, each of whom would create a tribute to one of the victims of the 9/11 attack; these will be posted as a memorial on September 11, 2006.

I have copied information from the site, and invite you to visit it too:

Tuesday, June 6th, 2006, 5:26 pm

2,996

Edited 6/17/06:

The project has progressed quite a bit from the time of this post.For up to date information on 2,996 visit the 2,996 blog.

Original post follows:

2,996 is an effort to bring together 2,996 bloggers in a massive memorial to the victims of 9/11.
On September 11, 2006, the 5th anniversary of the attacks, 2,996 bloggers will each post a memorial to one victim. We will remember the innocent victims of that day–we will not remember the murderers.

I’ve set up a page devoted to this tracking this effort: http://www.dcroe.com/2996. And over the next week or two, I’ll be adding news and a participants list to the page to give everyone a place to go for information about 2,996.

How can you join? Leave a comment, here or at the original post, and I’ll assign you a person killed on 9/11. Then all you need to do is post a tribute to that person on September 11, 2006.
I still need a good bit of helpI need graphics…specifically:

1. A graphic or button to drop into sidebars.
2. A banner.
3. Something tasteful for the 2,996 page.

But most of all I need publicity. Right now I have about 50 volunteers. That’s a little bit less that 2% of the total needed. Luckily there are still 97 days until 9/11 so there is still time to get more bloggers to join.

Thanks. I thank those who submitted suggestions for names for this project. I went with a suggestion from Jeni because I felt it had a great impact.

I also am thankful to those of you who have helped out by posting about this initiative on your own blogs.

This is still a long way from happening, but I hope I/we can pull it off. I think it would be an inspiring way to remember so much of what was important about 2,996 unique individuals.

Please Read and Act: The Amnesty Bill

2006-06-20T17:15:00.000-07:00

A friend who just got this email forwarded a copy to me. It speaks for itself, and IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO US ALL.

Breaking news on the Senate amnesty bill----

House leadership just announced that they will not succumb to pressure from the Senate to fast-track the amnesty bill. Instead House Speaker Hastert says the House will conduct "field hearings" on the amnesty bill. Hastert said, "I'm not putting any timeline on this thing, but I think we need this thing done right."

This is great news. House leaders are saying that we must secure the borders first and are resisting the Senate rush to amnesty.

Go to Grassfire's home page for the latest:

http://www.grassfire.org

+ + Immediate action needed--Call House Leaders!

I expect House leaders will come under intense pressure and we must let them know that we support their decision to have field hearings and delay the Senate amnesty push.

I am asking you to make a few phone calls right now to let House leaders know you support their decision.

TALKING POINTS:

1. I am a Grassfire team member.

2. I STRONGLY SUPPORT the House leadership's
decision to delay the Senate amnesty bill and hold
"field hearings."

3. I support the House bill and oppose the Senate amnesty
plan.

CONTACT NUMBERS:

Speaker Hastert: 202-225-0600
Majority Leader Boehner: 202-225-4000
Majority Whip Blunt: 202-225-1097
Deputy Whip Cantor: 202-225-2815

Your Congressman:
Switchboard: 202-224-3121
Or, look up your congressman here:

http://www.house.gov

Best to call during business hours.

+ + Forward this to your friends

Please spread the word to your personal network. Encourage your friends to call these leaders and to sign our petition by going here:

http://www.grassfire.org/42/petition.asp?PID=7861629

Again, this is great news and the DIRECT RESULT OF YOUR GRASSROOTS EFFORTS! But our job just got even more important!

Thanks for the stand you are taking!

Steve Elliott, President
Grassfire.org Alliance

+ + + + +
Grassfire.org Alliance is a non-profit 501(c)4 issues advocacy
organization dedicated to equipping our 1.5 million-strong network
of grassroots conservatives with the tools that give you a real
impact on the key issues of our day. Gifts to Grassfire.org are not
tax deductible.

+ + Comments? Questions?

http://www.grassfire.org/email.asp?ind=10

We have included the information about Grassfire.org for completeness. We were unaware of the organization until now. However, Grassfire is not the point--this immigration bill is! We have to make sure that it gets done right. Please put your shoulder to this wheel.

The Utter Dysfunction of the United Nations

2006-06-18T15:00:00.000-07:00

The following was posted as a comment to our moving-to-a-new-address announcement. As a comment, it may be missed, even though it is big. It offers too much to risk being missed, so we are making it a full blog.

The statement indicates that it was written by "...a concerned group of current and former UN employees," and at the end of this statement is person and address to contact. It urges action today on our parts to contact our representatives and senators, not to "reform" the UN, were that possible, but to: "Ask your Senators and Congressman to create a NEW organization that can lead the world well into the 21st Century."

Read it and pass it along. We despise the United Nations because we see it for the evil that it is. Let's starve it of funds, kick it out of the USA, end our membership. IF we join some new conglomerate of nations, let us capitalize on the horrible errors in principle and in fact involved with the UN.

It will take five minutes to read this and another five minutes to take action, proposed below. Please don’t ignore this, and please send it to friends and family. Your action could literally change the world.

Recently Mark Malloch Brown, deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, said that "Middle America" did not know how the US is constructively engaged with the UN because of UN detractors and too much unchecked UN-bashing and stereotyping over too many years. Friends, the UN deserves to be bashed and bashed hard.

Please allow us to give you a glimpse into how the United Nations is run:

Hirings and promotions routinely violate UN rules (and are illegal under most national laws) and revolve around patronage and whom one knows rather than professional qualifications. Poorly performing managers are simply moved into different management slots while others are placed in senior positions solely because of their nationality, or because of favors owed to them by their supervisors or colleagues.

Salaries for UN employees are free of taxes and come with six weeks vacation, 11 holidays, 10 sick days that are often used as vacation, plus 4 weeks of “home leave”, rental and housing grants to supplement an already generous salary (we all make an average of $7,000-$10,000 a month tax free), a pension at 8% of salary times years of service that can be cashed out tax free at any time, and educational subsidies for children of UN employees. Many also participate in an "alternative work schedule" in which they get every other Friday off. But don't even try to apply. Your application will not be acknowledged nor will you ever get invited for a job interview. You must know someone to work at the UN (or worse, sleep with them).

Several of us have advanced degrees in management and have been trained to manage large public organizations, yet we are blocked from advancing by bureaucrats in their 50s with no management training, education, or experience - only sitting in their chairs because they are friends with someone in a higher position. We threaten them because they know they are there based only on their connections.

And there is a profound lack of accountability within the UN regarding budget and resource allocation, resulting in loss of millions upon millions each year through skimming, graft and corruption. Simple procurement that would normally take five minutes using modern technology systems takes 2-3 months in the UN. And many United Nations Development Program country offices pay "local experts" outrageously high sums of money for products of dubious quality. Such contracts would never be made by other international aid agencies such as USAID that have much stronger internal controls and oversight.

We are all familiar with outrageous examples of scandals within the UN system, and yet time and again the scandal is covered up. In fact, a recent article on internal management in the Financial Times cited a UN-commissioned report released in 1994 that was remarkably damning and yet, as the article noted, nothing has changed which has led to this present crisis of credibility at the UN.

Despite its dysfunction, if the UN were actually making a difference, many would mutter to themselves but the UN deserves its strongest bashing because of its profound inability to respond to genocide, war, famine, natural disasters, and corruption.

Kofi Annan, current head of the United Nations who ironically lives in a mansion in New York worth about $10 million, was head of peacekeeping operations in 1994 in Rwanda when 800,000 people died. In 2004, he said "I believed at that time that I was doing my best" despite the fact that he held back UN troops from intervening to settle the conflict and declined to provide more logistic and material support to stop the slaughter.

And don't forget that ten years ago thousands of Bosnian Muslims were murdered by the Serb militias who were in a UN protected “safe haven” with hundreds of UN soldiers assigned to defend them. Yet the UN stood by while the entire adult and teenage male population was systematically butchered.

Kofi Annan was unable to stop mismanagement of the Oil-for-Food Program that allowed Saddam Hussein's regime to embezzle $4.4 billion through pricing irregularities and an additional $5.7 billion through illegal oil smuggling. And for several years Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna (while not even working there!), which won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil for Food program.

Kofi Annan protected Ruud Lubbers, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, against a report that found him guilty of sexual harassment by declaring him innocent. This created a global protest against Annan, resulting in Lubbers being eventually forced to resign, not because of his own egregious actions, but because he was starting to adversely impact Annan’s public image. By the way, Annan’s image is propped up around the world thanks to an $85 million dollar annual “communications” budget. What other modern corporation has two directors of communication like the UN doe - one for the UN “Secretariat” and one for the Secretary General.

Kofi Annan accepted a $500,000 prize from the ruler of Dubai, courtesy of a judges' panel full of U.N. cronies, one member of which Annan then appointed to a high U.N. job! By the way, Annan was advised to take the prize money by Malloch Brown who rents a home in Westchester County from his friend George Soros for $12,000 a month with a $287,087 annual salary.

Kofi Annan remains in power despite continuing sexual abuse scandals by UN peacekeepers. A 2005 internal UN investigation found that sexual abuse and forced pregnancies has been reported in at least five countries where UN peacekeepers have been deployed including the Congo, Haiti, Burundi, Cote d'Ivoire, and Liberia.

And Kofi Annan remains in power while genocide continues in Darfur, while Zimbabwe tailspins into despotism, while up to a third of the population of some African countries will die from AIDS, while government corruption keeps the poorest countries in starkest poverty, and while the U.N. Human Rights Council includes repressive non-democratic states such as Cuba, China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.

Kofi Annan and Mark Malloch Brown arrogantly ignore the fact that the quality of life of several of us has come close to being destroyed because of the mismanagement, abuse, fraud and corruption.

Most who work for the UN are so used to its dysfunctionality that they have NO idea how sick the organization is or they are unwilling to come forward because UN labor laws and protections are abysmal. Coming forward to a kangaroo court will only result in firing or worse. Please refer to the recent report prepared by UK Barrister and Human Rights QC Geoffrey Robertson on behalf of UN Staff, which highlights the gross deficiencies of worker protections at the UN at www.iowatch.org - and read about so many more abuses at www.iowatch.org.

Adding insult to injury, the newly created OIOS (the new "independent" internal oversight panel established to "reform" the UN) has been strong-armed by Malloch Brown and is not independent because its meager budget comes directly from the UN, equal to about one-half of Annan’s annual PR budget! Thus all are dissuaded from within the UN from coming forward.

And what really happened at UNDP, the organization that Malloch Brown used to “lead”? Why would Malloch Brown leave his influential post as head of UNDP to spend a year defending the scandals swirling around Kofi Annan and then announce that he would resign when Kofi leaves at the end of this year? Because he royally mismanaged UNDP. Everyone at UNDP knows this but is too scared to share the details of what happened for fear of retaliation by Brown. But ask UNDP Country Directors and UNDP Practice Managers what happened under King Mark's reign and you will get a completely different picture of his mismanagement skills and bombastic ways.

Another example, in order to uphold their political neutrality, UN employees are expressly barred from political participation and yet UNDP employee Justin Leites was allowed to campaign for U.S. Presidential candidate John Kerry - with MMB's approval!

As the walls literally crumble down around them, those who work for the UN and citizens who believe in the founding principles of the UN have no understanding how bad it really is. Unfortunately, we encourage young people who are seeking a career in international affairs to avoid the United Nations at all costs. We wish there would come a day when we would no longer make this recommendation.

Of course the senior leadership of the UN try to hide the profound problems of the UN but shame on them for saying that Americans don't know or understand how the US is engaged with the UN. If you and everyone in Middle America truly understood what ails the UN, the US, which funds $3.3 billion annually or 22% of the entire UN budget, would shut off the money spigot yesterday.

And remember - the talk of “reforming the UN” has gone on for over a DECADE. In sum, the UN should be shuttered, allowing a brand new organization to emerge because the current UN is broken beyond repair.
Not much has changed since the UN was founded 60 years ago. The UN could have done much, much better in making the word a better place.

Make no mistake. This is about the future of YOUR world – a world of some 180 countries desperate for a better life for all their citizens. Don't let self-interested, incompetent middle-aged bureaucrat hacks – most raised and educated under dictatorships - determine the future of OUR world.

Please contact your two Senators and your representative to the House of Representatives by clicking here: http://www.house.gov/writerep/. Ask your Senators and Congressman to stop discussing "reform" of the UN. Ask your Senators and Congressman to create a NEW organization that can lead the world well into the 21st Century.

This is NOT a Democrats vs. Republicans debate. All Democrats and all Republicans should be able to easily agree that if deep, deep reform is not possible, the UN should be closed and a new organization should be created to truly make the world a better place.

This is a non-partisan issue! Please share this with family and friends and post it on your favorite blogs.

For more information, please contact Edward Patrick Flaherty at info@iowatch.org who represents UN employees including our views here.

Written by a concerned group of current and former UN employees.

Posted by AYTQ to SIXTH COLUMN at 6/18/2006 11:29:31 AM

What is WRONG With the Dixie Chicks? And Kennedy, and Murtha, and Ward Churchill, and Cindy Sheehan, and. . .

2006-06-18T14:48:00.000-07:00

Folks,

Because of the time zone I live in, I sometimes miss things that you in earlier zones pick up on hours earlier. This morning, I woke up to the frothing of the mouth of our beloved local radio talk show host, who was angry at the Dixie Chicks for something (I couldn't tell exactly what it was) - again. When I was finely able to come and check the blog, I saw Eleanor's post (republished here in its entirety!), and understood immediately what our radio talk show host was upset about.

Here's Eleanor's post:

"Did you hear about the Dixie Chicks, girl band that is 'sickened by American patriotism'? They don't understand how one can 'love the whole country' and why 'patriotism is necessary' or 'why people care about patriotism.'"

Ever wonder how it is that these three pretty, talented, wholesome-looking American girls happened to have such hostile attitudes towards the country of their birth (to say nothing of the opportunity if afforded them to earn such a very nice living), despite what they observe here and around the world?

And make no mistake about it; they really DO think that "patriotism" is sick, they really DON'T understand the idea of pride of nation, and they MEAN it when they say they don't care about our country.

These girls are the most successful products and examples of the American educational system. I kid you not; it's no state secret; they got their hatred for patriotism, for love of country, for pride of nation, straight from the classrooms of our school system.

Those of you who visit this blog fairly often know just what I think of the American educational system.

You also know that several of us have been posting things about the increasing awareness of many people about the growing influence of the UN in the United States, an unattractive appeal that many in government and in the population have developed for the "sensitivity" about whether other nations "approve" of what we do, or whether they "like" us.

The UN and other like-minded individuals and institutions value 1) the "One World" idea, 2) the soon-to-be-established (2010) North American Union, 3) the fact that the borders between Mexico, the US, and Canada do not, in fact, exist, 4) the disarming of private citizens of the U.S., and more recently, 5) the desire to make homeschooling difficult or even illegal.

These issues are all related to each other and to the hostile attitude of the Dixie Chicks.

Instead of just telling you "our educational system played a very strong role in teaching the Dixie Chicks this U.S.-hating attitude," I'll put down a few historical snippets and some quotes from the academic and government establishments for you to consider.

I think that this material would make a great sci-fi movie about our future; it's absolutely Orwellian, or like the story "Logan's Run," or Ayn Rand's novella, "Anthem."

First, there are growing numbers of people - I am one of them - who are alarmed at the increasing pace and SNEAKINESS with which the One World concept is being implemented.

It is not uncommon for the government to conclude unpopular deals in smoke-filled back rooms when they know that the people will oppose them. Remember the Dubai Ports fiasco, and how we, the "little people," didn't find out about it until it was literally days from becoming a done deal? (By the way, that deal is still waiting in the wings until we "little people" with our "short attention spans" forget about it, and it can be quietly slipped past us like the Doncaster deal was shortly afterwards. As you recall, Doncaster's is a British company that makes sensitive items for the Department of Defense, and was sold to Dubai while we were breathing a sigh of relief that our ports hadn't been handed over to the Muslims, and while we were distracted by the problem of illegal invaders pouring across our borders).

Anyway, back to the Dixie Chicks and their anti-American, patriotism-hating, nation-despising statements and attitudes.

I am particularly sickened by the use of the school system as a principal means of accomplishing it.

When did this project of the globalization of America begin? It was probably earlier than you thought possible.

The Framers of the Constitution had an incredible opportunity, during a unique moment in history, to design a brand new nation from scratch. The opportunity was a “perfect storm” of sorts.

For thousands of years, people all over the world had lived in an uncomfortable relationship with their governing bodies. Almost from the beginning, the ruler had absolute power over the lives of individuals. This relationship had become accepted almost as a given because it had "always been that way."

But then, during the Enlightenment, an astonishing breakthrough in philosophy occurred. The Enlightenment was a period of thunderous philosophical growth. It was during the Enlightenment that it was discovered that the rights of individual human beings were more important than the raw power of governments.

This - the breakthrough in thinking about a proper relationship between a government and its citizens - was "Part I" of the "perfect storm."

"Part II" was the discovery of vast lands where a new country based on the breakthrough ideas could be created.

Because the technology of the period made it difficult for the rulers of the Old World to control the people living in the New World, the Founders were free to establish a totally new kind of country. For the first time in history, a nation was deliberately designed to recognize, in writing, that the rights of the citizen stood above the power of government, and that the power of government should properly be restricted to those activities that protected rights. It was not, according to the new philosophical discoveries, a proper function of government to tell people how to think, what to believe, what to do with their lives, etc.

But the old view that had prevailed throughout history up to that time was not to be so quickly or easily dismissed.

As early as the late 1700s, around the time of the ratification of the Constitution, utopian social reformers Robert Dale Owen (son of socialist reformer Robert Owen) and Frances Wright were working together, and established a commune. They had a vision where, through the utterly “equal” (read: “identical”) education of all children by the government, from ages two through sixteen, 24/7, all property and income would eventually be equalized. Their idea was not adopted “as is” right off the bat, but it helped seed ideas that would shape the course of education in the United States about eighty years later.

Dr. Dennis L. Cuddy, a former Senior Associate in the U.S. Department of Education, was disturbed long before many others were by the direction being taken by American education. He understood that the teaching programs in our schools would lead to precisely the attitude we see in the Dixie Chicks.

Cuddy compiled an interesting timeline called "Chronology of Education" which gave example after example of statements by proponents of education for the "New World Order." Another former government official, Charlotte Iserbyt, served with the Department of Education as Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement. She quietly collected many memos and internal documents about the plan to "globalize" American children, then left her job and later published the material she had collected as "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America." Another exceedingly accessible collection of information is in Berit Kjos' book, "Brave New Schools."

There is some very interesting information in Cuddy’s "timeline." I can only put a few selections here, but you’ll have no trouble connecting the dots.

First, by way of a preamble to these two "whistle blowers," our tax-supported, compulsory-attendance, lock-step curriculum school system did not exist at the time of the founding of our country, or for nearly a hundred years thereafter. There is no mention in our Constitution of the establishment of an educational system by the government. Education is NOT a Constitutionally mandated function of government.

Out government-run school system was modeled after the one in Germany, which was established in the early 1500s by Martin Luther. He knew that not everyone in Germany favored the idea of his split from the Catholic Church, and that something needed to be done quickly if his ideas were to "stick." He knew that the most effective way to bring Germany on board was to teach as many of the children about Lutheran piety as quickly as possible.

It worked; the first schools based on his idea of a tax-supported, compelled attendance (they even had truancy laws!) and controlled curriculum were set up by 1527. The idea spread rapidly, first to Calvin's Geneva, then to Holland, and from Holland, the concept was brought by the Puritans to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Each of the Colony's municipalities had such a school. The idea at that time was that in order to have “social stability,’ every child must be taught to have the same belief system. No competition of ideas permitted - that would rock the boat!

Horace Mann, who is credited with the founding of the US public school system, was a descendant of those colonists. He grew up in the traditional family belief system, but converted to Unitarianism, a very tolerant religion, one of whose founders was British chemist Joseph Priestley. Mann converted only in part because of the gloomy atmosphere that prevailed in the family religion; a significant part of the reason was a matter of retaliation.

Mann's brother had skipped Sunday school to go swimming, and had drowned. On the occasion of the funeral, the preacher made a mean-spirited object lesson of the death, and Mann could think of no better way to punish him than to reject his religion. Mann's conversion notwithstanding, he retained many of his Calvinist ideas, including the one that said that children were predisposed to evil, and that "social stability" could be acquired only through the teaching of a uniform Protestant orthodoxy.

Mann wasn't thinking "globalization" when he established the government education system in the early-mid 1800s, but his desire for a social stability based on a single belief system laid the groundwork for it. The dream of the "One World" people saw in the new system an irresistable opportunity to teach their collectivist ideas to entire generations of school children.

The final impetus for Mann to act came with the immigration of thousands upon thousands of Catholics to the U.S. He was utterly convinced that nothing less than the salvation of the nation was at stake should Catholic children not be taught his beliefs.

The unintended result was the first serious sign of social instability; Catholic parents, outraged that their children were being compelled to study "Protestantism," established their own school system, which remains in place to this day.

In the peri-Civil War period, Americans were still pretty pissed off at the Brits because of the Revolution and the War of 1812, so instead of sending their sons to complete their educations in Britain, which was the birthplace of the Enlightenment principles on which our nation was founded, they sent them instead to Germany.

Germany was one of the European countries where the old ideas of the relationship between government (it was all powerful) and the citizen ( subject to government whim) still heavily influenced the culture. In fact, it was a German philosopher, George Hegel, who popularized the notion of the "Organic Theory of State." According to this theory, the state (the "organism") was supreme, and the citizen (the "cell") existed only by the state's permission, and was expendable.
The education of the flower of our youth in the old collectivist system was a disaster for our country; our red-blooded American boys got thoroughly infested with this old, outworn, and totally invalid philosophy, which was 180 degrees away from the Founders' views. The boys came streaming back to the US, where they entered every field of endeavor, generation after generation after generation.

Think about it; they became politicians, academics, businessmen, philosophers, journalists, entertainers, and - of course - teachers.

Does it surprise you, then, to observe that so many of our politicians, universities, journalists, publishers, entertainers and - of course – teachers - hold collectivist views? Over the years, it has been a small step from the collectivist philosophies of the day (which evolved into the American Left, socialism, Communism, Fascism, the Nazis, etc.), to the even larger collectivist ideal of today, Globalism. And please, don't forget the nastiest collective ever, Islam, which has the same remote ancestor as the rest of the collectivist doctrines, including globalism.

That's the reason the Left here in the U.S. and the other collectivists elsewhere in the world, including at the U.N., seem so chummy.

Formal planning of the globalization of education began very soon after Mann had established the system in use today, and is teaching the ideas to millions upon millions of American school children.

Let's take a look: We've already mentioned the Utopian Socialists Owen and Wright, and their pure culture of communism (no capitals).

In 1905, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching was founded. It is a major promoter and funder of socialist and globalist education projects.

Soon after that, in 1919, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace gave a grant to establish the Institute of International Education. Socialist philosopher/educator John Dewey, often referred to as the “Father of Progressive Education,” and one of the developers of the American philosophy of Pragmatism, was on the National Advisory Council of the brand new Institute of International Education. Dewey also served as Honorary President of the National Education Association (NEA).

By 1934, the NEA was actively promoting an “equitable distribution of income” as well as the view that the “major” function of education was to seek to give the student “understanding of the transition to a new social order” (remember Owens and Wright?). The NEA is famous to this day for its very strong dedication to "socialist ideals."

By 1942, early in WWII, the NEA’s journal had an editorial called “The United Peoples of the World,” in which it explained the proposed New World Government’s need for a single World Police Force, a single World System of Money and Credit, a single World Bill of Rights [a collectivist’s definition of a “right” is a very distorted and dangerous one] and ‘Duties’” (read “duties” to mean “obligation to serve the State” in the sense of the “Organic Theory of State”), and last, but certainly not least, the means of producing entire populations around the world that would support such a notion. They would need an Educational Branch. The Educational Branch of the World Government which would establish a single, uniform system of education for the whole world, with the same textbooks used in every school around the globe.

In 1946, the same publication stated that “…to establish an adequate World Government, the teacher…can do much to prepare the hearts and minds of children…At the top…must stand the school, the teacher, and the organized profession.”

Also in 1946, Canadian psychiatrist Brock Chisholm, then head of the World Health Organization (the UN was founded in 1945), said this:

“We have swallowed all manner of poisonous certainties fed us by our parents…the re-interpretation and eventually eradication of the concept of right and wrong which has been the basis of child training…are the belated objectives of practically all effective psychotherapy...the study of such things as trigonometry, Latin, religions and others of specialist concern should be left to universities. Only so…can we help our children carry their responsibilities as world citizens…We must be prepared to sacrifice much...putting aside the mistaken old ways of our elders if that is possible. If it cannot be done gently, it may have to be done roughly or even violently…”

In 1948, the NEA produced a set of guidelines called “Education for International Understanding in American Schools—Suggestions and Recommendations.” It included the following:

“Many persons believe that enduring peace cannot be achieved so long as the nation-state system continues as at present constituted. It is a system of international anarchy.”

Please read that part carefully, because the Dixie Chicks and many others have learned this lesson about the anarchy that is supposed to exist because of the existence of nations very well indeed. It is for PEACE that they, and all the Left, want to demolish the United States!

In 1962, the plan for globalization was beginning to catch the public’s attention. In an editorial about NEA goals and power, the Chicago Sun-Times said: “…real control over the Nation’s children…is being shifted rapidly to the NEA. That organization has about completed the job of cartelizing public school education…It is extending that control over colleges and universities…it will be a simple matter to extend control over whatever Washington agency handles the funds.”

In 1965, a book authored by a UCLA professor, John Goodlad ("Citizens for the 21st Century"), and funded by money from the Federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, said:
“…the school is perceived…as a…box where boys and girls come to sit still for six hours a day…to be told about some fragmentary pieces of ‘knowledge’ thought to reflect the rudiments of their ‘culture.’ This image must be shattered, violently if necessary—and forever.”

In 1970, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, a branch of the NEA, published “To Nurture Humaneness: Commitment for the ‘70s.” Here’s some of what it had to tell us:

“Many daily decisions and value judgments now made by the individual will soon be made for him…How to plan for one’s children’s education will be partially taken out of his hands…” (John Loughary, University of Oregon).

By 1973, the Global Education Associates was founded. In "Toward a Human World Order," a book written a few years later by GEA’s founders Gerald and Patricia Mische, it said “It examines the strait-jacket of the present nation-state system and…explores world order alternatives…”

Here it is again, the promotion of the existence of independent nations as an evil entity. The Dixie Chicks applaud!

In 1976, an article by Harold Shane, Project Director for the NEA Bicentennial Committee, was printed in the Phi Delta Kappan. It was “America’s Next 25 Years: Some Implications for Education.” Here is a little of what it had to say:

“As young people mature, we must help them develop…a service ethic which is geared toward the real world…the global servant concept in which we will educate our young for planetary service and eventually for some form of world citizenship.”

The Dixie Chicks are among the first of our most loyal world citizens.

In 1983, the Institute for 21st Century Studies was founded by Gerald O. Barney (and funded by the Rockefellers, the World Bank and UNESCO). Its mission is “to provide support for…21st Century Study teams...in exploring alternative national futures…adopting a global perspective.”
In 1985, the State Department gave the Carnegie Corporation the authority to “negotiate with the Soviet Academy of Sciences, which is known to be an intelligence-gathering arm of the KGB, about the ‘curriculum development and the restructuring of American education.’”

In 1990, in “The Keys of This Blood: The Struggle for World Dominion," author Malachi Martin described the transnationalists’ goal that “ideally the same textbooks should be used all over the world…and…a concrete initiative in this direction has been under way for some years…undertaken by Informatick, a Moscow-based educational organization, and the Carnegie Endowment Fund…” The values the transnationalists promote are: “Good” will not longer be colored by a moral or religious coloring. “Good” will simply be synonymous with “global.”…We must all become little Transnationalists.

In 1993, Howard Gardner, author of “Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences” (if you are interested in education, you probably remember all the swooning that took place with the publication of this book) said: “…the educational plans…help the society to achieve its larger goals…individuals with gifts in certain directions must nonetheless be guided along other, less favored paths, simply because the needs of the culture are particularly urgent in that realm at that time.” (Read "needs of the culture" as "whims of the globalists.")

In 1994, South Dakota passed a bill that would require that home school teachers be certified by the year 2000. Parents and private schools would not be able to teach without going through the training required to teach children the new beliefs and attitudes.

The list goes on and on, but this should be sufficient to cause you to suspect that your complaints about the schools and what’s being taught in them are not just some accident, the product on an atypical few with loud mouths.

The goal of the collectivists, ever since Mann established the government school system, has been to hijack it and hitch it to the wagon of globalism. Author Iserbyt has aptly said, “The soil has been tilled and the seeds have been planted. We now await the blossoming of what John Dewey and his followers have worked for since the early 1900s: universal socialist/internationalist education for the world government’s planned economy.”

The Dixie Chicks are hardly the only well known products of our educational system. There are many others, from “academics” like Ward Churchill, political activists like Cindy Sheehan, politicians like Kerry, Kennedy and Bush (yes – and I mean both Bush 41 and Bush 43), military personnel like John Murtha (whose uniform should offer no disguise or protection from criticism for his thinking, any more than the label of "religion" should offer Islam protection from scrutiny and criticism), CNN’s Ted Turner, and too many judges, journalists and entertainers (in addition to the Dixie Chicks) to count.

Don’t believe for a minute that the sudden rash of articles being published about how the UN wants to create a borderless world, how Bush wants to create a North American Union, how the Supreme Court is listening more and more closely to world opinion, how the UN wants to disarm citizens of the United States, how the UN wants to make it unlawful for parents to teach their own children, and so on and on, are just the rants of wild-eyed conspiracy-theorists who are running about waving signs with messages about the end of the world as we know it.

If you do think that, just you wait and see.

Muslim Cognitive Constipation

2006-06-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

There is a Muslim who writes me from time to time. His approach is respectful, and I applaud him for that. However, he is solidly ossified cognitively into Islam.

Today I got another one of his messages, in which he attempts to soften my stand on Islam. The email chain follows as an example of how hard it is to budge someone from a BELIEF SYSTEM once they incorporate it into their psyche.

The message to me is that the rational can successfully turn off Islam only by getting to the children at a very young age. On our website, Cubed and I, in several articles (here, here, and here), have been exploring what Islam does to the forming minds of children to ensure its perennial success. To the best of our awareness, the available materials on Islam deal only with the fully formed Muslim and not with the formative forces, except Raphael Patai's The Arab Mind (reviewed here). We will continue to publish on our website how Islam deforms children's minds and why that produces the refractory adolescent and adult Muslims who actively or passively support killing us.

18 June 2006
Salam (Peace) Mr. George,

sorry for the late reply.

i sense from your reply that you have a great misunderstanding about islam & muslims, i know it`s the result of the media which only focuses on the negative side, where each society has that side.

but to judge on a belief we should search the teachings of that belief, we can`t judge it by the acts of some followers, by that , we would not use our brains properly, to distinguish between right & wrong.

there are some who understand things in a wrong way, or maybe try to assure a certain thought in order to ruin the image of islam (i mean the muslims who understand islam the wrong way)

while the real islam calls for peace, love & justice.

you are saying that the moderate muslims have been interred, have you have visited a muslim society? have you even visited a muslim country? have you ever dealt with muslims?

you can`t judge based on TV & news , i call you to explore islam from it`s original source & try to be fair without a pre-judgment.

thank you very much

Salam (Peace)

IWG 50 M1
======================

Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 06:04:14 -0700
From: 6thCAJ & Sixth Column
To: IWG 50 M1
Subject: Re: I know that, my article may be unusual ,but
it might be useful. PLEASE read it

Sir,

You wrote: "I know that, my article may be unusual ,but it might be useful. PLEASE read it."

I read it. I found nothing unusual about it. I failed to find it useful in any way.

Your article is Islamic propaganda. It spins the same set of kitmanisms that a number of Muslims would like for non-Muslims to think that Islam really is. Alas, I have read Islamic materials in breadth and depth, covering the Muhammadan times to the present, and I watch the news.

However much syrup Muslims pour over Islam, they can never disguise its fundamental toxicity. What the world needs is a radical Islamectomy. Muslims have made us realize that the only peaceful and trustworthy Muslims have been interred.

--
George Mason
==============

On 7/6/05, IWG 50 M1 wrote:
> I know that, my article may be unusual ,but it might
be useful. PLEASE read
> it ________________________________
>
> What is Islam¿
>
> ISLAM AND MUSLIM
> The name of this religion is Islam, the root of which is Silm and Salam which means peace. Salam may also mean greeting one another with peace. One of the beautiful names of God is that He is the Peace. It means more than that: submission to the One God, and to live in peace with the Creator, within one's self, with other people and with the environment. Thus, Islam is a total system of living. A Muslim is supposed to live in peace and harmony with all these segments; hence, a Muslim is any person anywhere in the world whose obedience, allegiance, and loyalty are to God, the Lord of > the Universe.

> MUSLIMS AND ARAB
> The followers of Islam are called Muslims. Muslims are not to be confused with Arabs. Muslims may be Arabs, Turks, Persians, Indians, Pakistanis, Malaysians, Indonesians, Europeans, Africans, Americans, Chinese, or other nationalities. An Arab could be a Muslim, a Christian, a Jew or an atheist. Any person who adopts the Arabic language is called an Arab. However, the language of the Qur'an (the Holy Book of Islam) is Arabic. Muslims all over the world try to learn Arabic so that they may be able to read the Qur'an and understand its meaning. They pray in the language of the Qur'an, namely Arabic. Supplications to God could be in any language. While there are one nillion Muslims in the world there are about 200 million Arabs. Among them, approximately ten percent are not Muslims. Thus Arab Muslims constitute only about twenty percent of the Muslim population of the world. >
> ALLAH THE ONE AND THE ONLY GOD
>
> Muslims believe that Allah is the name of the One and Only God. He is the Creator of all human beings. He is the God for the Christians, the Jews, the Muslims, the Buddhists, the Hindus, the atheists, and others. Muslims worship God whose name is Allah. They put their trust in Him and they seek His help and His guidance.

> MUHAMMAD
>
Muhammad was chosen by God to deliver His Message of Peace, namely Islam. He was born in 570 C.E. (Common Era) in Makkah, Arabia. He was entrusted with the Message of Islam when he was at the age of forty years. The revelation that he received is called the Qur'an, while the message is called Islam.

> Muhammad is the very last Prophet of God to mankind. He is the final Messenger of God. His message was and is still to the Christians, the Jews and the rest of mankind. He was sent to those religious people to inform them about the true mission of Jesus, Moses, Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham. Muhammad is considered to be the summation and the culmination of all the prophets and messengers that came before him. He purified the previous messages from adulteration and completed the Message of God for all humanity. He was entrusted with the power of explaining, interpreting and living the teaching of the Qur'an.
> NON-MUSLIMS
> Muslims are required to respect all those who are faithful and God conscious people, namely those who received messages. Christians and Jews are called People of the Book. Muslims are asked to call upon the People of the Book for common terms, namely, to worship One God, and to work together for the solutions of the many problems in the society. Christians and Jews lived peacefully with Muslims throughout centuries in the Middle East and other Asian and African countries. The second Caliph Umar, did not pray in the church in Jerusalem so as not to give the Muslims an excuse to take it over. Christians entrusted the Muslims, and as such the key of the Church in Jerusalem is still in the hands of the Muslims. Jews fled from Spain during the Inquisition, and they were welcomed by the Muslims. They settled in the heart of the Islamic Caliphate. They enjoyed positions of power and authority. Throughout the Muslim world, churches, synagogues and missionary schools were built within the Muslim neighborhoods. These places were protected by Muslims even during the contemporary crises in the Middle East
>
> Thank You
>
>
> For more information about Islam:
>
http://www.geocities.com/iforwest
>
> Embrace Islam
>
> EmbraceIslam@yahoo.comFree Islamic Books
>
>
Free_islamic_book@yahoo.comMore Info
>
> askado3at@yahoo.com

I have tried to edit only the formatting to improve readability. I removed only redundant and noncontributory phrases.

That a Muslim attempts to PERSUADE me is unique. I expect nothing but blood-curdling threats and vituperations. This is refreshing.

However, the writer has drunk all of the Islamic kool-aid and now marches to its drummer. He attempts to mix fact and fantasy, rather than going to principles. He has all the cliche'd rejoinders down pat as well as the lines of propaganda. All of these have neutralized his ability to step out of the Islamic box and take a fresh look, which includes reading and hearing what others tell about Islam.

Going to the principles takes Islam and Muslims to ground they cannot defend or even fight on. Thus, Islam long ago waged continuous war on the human mind.

Once the Islamic mind ossifies in early adolescence, most Muslims are lost to reason forever. Yes, they always retain the capacity for it, but Islam's efforts to kill reason in each and every Muslim usually carry the day for Muslims.

"Dixie Chicks Question Your Patriotism"

2006-06-17T11:34:00.000-07:00

"But don't question theirs:

Did you hear about the Dixie Chicks, girl band that is "sickened by American patriotism"? They don't understand how one can "love the whole country" and why "patriotism is necessary" or "why people care about patriotism".

Hattip: Michelle Malkin. Besides this one, Michelle also includes a variety of patriotic pix that are sure to turn the Chicks collective stomachs.

What's This About? "British civics class encourages kids to think like terrorists"

2006-06-17T10:30:00.000-07:00

Via: LGF

From: The Stupidest Educators Files:

In order to assist in the teaching of current affairs.

Who's bright idea was this: "Citizenship class is taught to think like a terror cell...

Teaching packs entitled 9/11: The Main Chance, which invite pupils to imagine organising a terrorist attack, have been distributed to schools running the Government’s much-vaunted citizenship classes.

One worksheet asks the pupils to imagine what terrorist targets there are in their neighbourhoods. They have then to suggest what weapons and methods should be used to ensure the most effective results.

At the end of the worksheets, which are funded through the Government’s neighbourhood renewal programmes, a number of links to other terrorism-related articles are listed including one on food terrorism and how fast-food chains, for example, could be attacked. Another article is headlined “How safe is our water?” A series of links to websites on the September 11 atrocity, in which 2,986 people were killed when al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked and crashed four planes, are also listed on the worksheets.

Many of the sites propound outlandish conspiracy theories on the atrocity including the suggestion that the American military shot down flight United 93.

Another link takes pupils to a website which suggests that Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President, directed the attacks, while another “news” website the worksheets encourage pupils to visit includes references to images of Satan appearing in smoke over the Twin Towers on September 11.

Tim Window, one of the creators of 9/11: The Main Chance, said that the packs had been used with great success at a pupil referral unit he works at in East London before they were introduced across the borough of Waltham Forest.

Mr Window denied that the packs were culturally insensitive and said that they were about teaching pupils to bring “impartial and unbiased information” to a subject.

After the publication by the Government of the “narrative” into the July 7 bombings, Bill Rammell, the Higher Education Minister, said that citizenship classes should be used to give pupils a stronger sense of British identity.

He said that teaching all children about British culture and traditions would allow Muslim children to integrate better into society.

How can simulating terrorism and assassination "help Muslim children to integrate better into society"? The developers of this program must have gone to same school as those that created JFK Reload, the game that simulates the assassination of JFK and gives players an opportunity to learn assassination decisions and techniques.

According to Hot Air that did the research, the demographics of pupils in the area where the program is used is "disproportionately Muslim"

Why am I not surprised...and won't they be surprised when more terrorists, Muslim or not, arise from the population exposed to this program!

"An Electric Car, Booted"

2006-06-17T06:53:00.000-07:00

The premise of the film "Who Killed the Electric Car" makes you shake your head and wonder which idiots took these cars off the road, cancelled the program and set the United States down the road of foreign-oil dependence. One doesn't have to be rocket scientist to guess that the big oil and car companies and their satellites, some of whom are foreign governments, influenced the demise of the electric care and created the energy and political quagmire in which we find ourselves today. I hate to say it: the authors of this decision are guilty of gross stupidity and perhaps, treason.

The film chronicles how GM developed and launched a fleet of silent, aerodynamic electric vehicles to meet California's zero-emissions mandate. The shapely two-seaters with a GM logo enjoyed a brief ride in California and Arizona from 1996 until 2003, when they were taken off the market and destroyed. (GM says it was concerned about safety; others say the company wanted to head off the loss of proprietary secrets.)

Paine was one of the original drivers. The director started to make a comedy about Los Angeles drivers going nutty over cars, but the project turned serious after he encountered perfectly drivable EV1s being crushed and shredded at the Mesa Proving Grounds in Arizona.

In the film, images of President Bush and Vice President Cheney set a political tone, although California regulators set standards for zero emissions that forced automakers, including Honda and Toyota, to experiment with electric cars. Ralph Nader weighs in. So do Mel Gibson and Tom Hanks, who drove EV1s.

The car evolved from the Impact concept car developed by Paul MacCready's AeroVironment team. Every one of its 2,000 parts was unique. The engine whirred, rather than roared, but spewed no emissions; there was no gear-shifting; and drivers talk of the car's torque with awe.

The first wave of cars, including the Smithsonian's, could travel 52 miles on a charge of four to six hours; the second-generation cars used a nickel metal hydride battery, which increased the range to about 125 miles. Cars were leased, rather than sold, by Saturn dealers, with monthly costs from $350 to more than $500.

The film presents the EV1 as an answer to global warming, pollution, unrest in the Middle East and rising gasoline prices.
Instead, California changed its emissions laws and automakers could again pursue nonelectric technology. GM, which had spent more than $1 billion on the EV1, says it halted production of the vehicle because there were only 800 paying customers.

Electric-car activists contend that GM ignored a waiting list of 5,000 because achieving success with the EV1 threatened to make the rest of GM's cars look bad.

Phil Karn, a vice president for technology at Qualcomm in San Diego, drove the Smithsonian's car for two years. He leased a second one, commuting 11 miles each way to work without recharging issues. When the car was reclaimed, he says, it felt like losing a family pet.

"It made no sense to us," he said by phone. "The only way we can figure is, they built this car to fail . . . or the anti-EV1 faction inside GM won."

What bothers Karn the most is the idea that a bold new chapter in autos ended so abruptly. "We thought it was the beginning of something new," Karn said. "It may not have been the perfect car, but it looked like the beginning of something new."

GM's Barthmuss compares the launch of the EV1 with the debut of the iPod, only with far fewer customers. "We, in our heart of hearts, believe we did the right thing," he says. "The EV1 experience demonstrated to California regulators that battery technology was not going to advance further. It was only going to appeal to a small number of people."

GM needs "extremely large numbers" to survive, Barthmuss added.

"We lost well over a billion dollars," he said. "We simply could not afford to lose that kind of money. I very much regret that people are so angry."

The Smithsonian has no plans to bring the EV1 back on view. When the museum reopens in 2008, one of the most innovative commuter cars ever will be resting in peace in a Suitland storage facility.

The U.S. Government subsidizes every kind of pork project imaginable. Why couldn't and why didn't the U.S. Government put this project at the top of its list and who made the decision not to do so?

The electric car concept and promising others that have been ignominiously shelved in favor of of the oil industry's darlings does not have to be swept into the dustbin of history. Sooner or later we will have to revive or create something else. At this point, soon is better than later.

"Proposal for UN Standing Army Would See UN Head Trumping Security Council"

2006-06-17T00:30:00.000-07:00

Is the handwriting on the wall?

Uh, oh. A standing army at the UN that "would trump the security council," that would be a rapid response to " 'take action to prevent war and dire threats to human security and human rights' within 48 hours of UN authorization."

I don't like the sound of that. Who decides what is a "dire threat" and we already know that the UN has decided that the right of free association, thought, and action in lieu of parental control are human rights and that the UN has decided that not allowing individuals to have dangerous weapons that could hurt others (small arms: guns,knives) is a human right. Could a standing force appear at my door to demand that my children attend school or that I surrender my steak knives? What about the payment of international taxes? Would I be forced by this entity to ante up for the UN?

UNITED NATIONS, New York - June 16, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A book launched at the United Nations headquarters today proposes a permanent standing UN army with "rapid reaction capability" under the sole direct command of the UN. The proposals stem from A United Nations Emergency Peace Service to Prevent Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, envisioning a standing UN army that would "take action to prevent war and dire threats to human security and human rights" within 48 hours of UN authorization.

According to the book, the need for a UN Emergency Peace service stems from "the international community's failure to stop genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and to avert 'ethnic cleansing' occurring in the Darfur region of Sudan." The book hinges the need for this independent UN army on the claim that the UN has "no capacity to avert such catastrophes", even though UN forces on the ground in Rwanda were ordered not to interfere in the 1994 genocide, despite the pleadings of Gen. Romeo D'Allaire to intervene in the massacres.

Unlike previous proposals for a UN army, these latest proposals call for an army consisting of troops that would not be accountable to any nation or state, but completely remain under the auspices of the United Nations in order to increase response time to humanitarian crises such as "genocide" or "gross violations of human rights". The UN force would consist of 12,000 to 15,000 "civilian, police, judicial, military, and relief professionals" composed of "individually recruited" volunteers from many countries, which means that this army "within a single command structure" would have direct loyalty to the UN, "avoiding divided loyalties."

These forces would have to incorporate "gender sensitivities" and "gender training" in compliance with UN resolution 1325. This UN force would be in the payroll of the UN like UN civil servants, and estimates for the project's startup are 2 billion dollars with an estimated annual cost of 900 million dollars. According to the report, "the UN Emergency Peace Service would, for the first time in history, offer a rapid, comprehensive, internationally legitimate response to crisis."

The book emphasizes that the Security Council would be the most likely group to authorize this UN army, followed next by the UN General Assembly, or "a regional international organization." In one proposal for a more rapid response, in order to bypass a veto, the Secretary General could authorize the intervention of the UN Emergency Peace Service in a region without the deliberation of the Security Council or the General Assembly. In this scenario, the Security Council could only revoke the deployment of the UN army by passing a resolution according to normal procedures, meaning a veto would continue the deployment of UN troops.

The creation of an independent UN force would give the UN an unprecedented amount of muscle to act in the international arena. According to the book, if the United Nations determined that a state had violated "accountability to its people", the "UN charter", or was not in "compliance with human rights agreements", then the UN could intervene with this rapid response force on the principle of enforcing the "people's sovereignty." Among the six principles for intervention, one of the conditions advocates the pre-emptive use of the UN force when "there is an immediate and evident threat of gross violations of international humanitarian and human rights law."

Pro-life observers are concerned that UN definitions of "human rights" are more and more including abortion as a human right. Recent proposals by Amnesty International in this direction provide evidence of the trend. Moreover, non-acceptance of homosexuality is also often a violation of human rights. Recently the European Union has condemned Poland for violating human rights for the country's refusal to pass laws legitimizing such behaviour.

"We're From the U.N. and We Want Your Guns"

2006-06-16T14:41:00.000-07:00

Nothing surprises me anymore. The U.N. is influencing U.S. lawmakers and international law is influencing the courts as some judges are "looking to international law for precedence" to influence decisions. Could our rights under the Constitution become a thing of the past? Anything is possible.

The U.N. will gather in New York City this July for the 2006 Small Arms Review Conference. Doesn’t the name alone make you nervous? The U.N. is “reviewing” guns. If you don’t own one, doesn’t it make you want to go out and buy one just so you can be ready for whatever Kofi’s got planned?

Wayne LaPierre is plenty nervous, which is why he’s written, “The Global War on Your Guns: Inside the U.N.’s Plan to Destroy the Bill of Rights.” Sound alarmist?

His critics think so, claiming that the aim of the conference and its supporters is only to deal with the “illicit” sale of small arms, so it would have no effect on any legally traded arms. But check out the U.N.'s own explanation and see what you think (emphasis mine):

By unanimously adopting the UN Programme of Action to address the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons (UNPoA), in 2001, the UN Member States committed to collecting and destroying illegal weapons, adopting and/or improving national legislations that would help criminalize the illicit trade in small arms, regulating the activities of brokers, setting strict import and export controls, taking action against violators of such laws, and better coordinating international efforts to that end.

Sounds like there’s some wiggle room in there to me. I got to talk to LaPierre, executive vice president and chief executive officer of the National Rifle Association, about his new book and the new fight facing gun owners.

LaPierre has been charting the U.N. gun-ban movement since the mid-1990s, when all of the nuclear freeze non-governmental organizations (NGOs) morphed into gun-ban groups and “hijacked the disarmament machinery of the United Nations,” he said.   The philosophy of these groups, LaPierre said, is that the right to own a gun should be solely the right of governments, and they despise the fact that the United States remains a country in which private citizens can keep a handgun at their bedsides.
In a recent debate LaPierre did with Rebecca Peters, who is heading up the NGOs’ gun-ban efforts, Peters told him that Americans need to give up on the notion of self-defense because it’s something that only happens in movies.

The problem is, of course, that a disarmed people can do nothing when its armed government or militias turns on it. The U.N. has no response about what to do about that, LaPierre said, citing the Tutsis in Rwanda, the people of Darfur, and the Muslims of Bosnia.

“All they offer is a global socialist fantasy…If there were no guns, there would be no poverty, there would be no child hungry, there would be no violence. It’s the same global socialist fantasy we saw in the 20th century, “ he said. “Under the U.N. gun-ban policy, they have no solution for when the government goes bad; they have no answer for how to be liberated from a tyrant or a dictator; they have no answer for what oppressed people should do…Their whole philosophy is give up your arms and your freedoms and we’ll protect you.”

But why should we be scared in the U.S., I asked him. Doesn’t our Constitution override any international treaty the U.N. could impose upon us?

According to LaPierre, the U.N. plans can find their way into America in one of several ways. A treaty would require approval by two thirds of the Senate. An international agreement, however, is a lower hurdle, requiring only a simply majority. But, if neither of those succeeds, much of the U.N. plan can be implemented through executive agreement—the President putting policy to work through his agency heads.

The NRA’s message remains that gun owners should stay vigilant about the U.N. and work in 2006 and 2008 to elect Second Amendment candidates here at home who will protect their rights from U.N. encroachment.
“This threat is real. It is very well-funded and they really do intend to diminish the standard of U.S. freedom and dumb it down to some U.N. standard,” he said.

As for the upcoming conference, LaPierre is just happy to have Ambassador John Bolton on the inside, fighting for American gun-owners. There will be a week of testimony from NGOs and member countries before the U.N. insiders go behind closed doors to make decisions. It’s hard to find an ally on this issue behind those doors, he said.

“The United States stands alone,” he said. “The United Kingdom has not only thrown in the towel; they’re funding this.”
Another contributor to the gun-ban crusade is none other than moonbat favorite George Soros. Though some Democrats have learned recently that it doesn’t pay to be on the wrong side of the Second Amendment come election time, LaPierre doesn’t believe the American left is about to give up on gun control. The U.N. is just another vehicle for the same old policies, he said.

“There’s a whole wing of the party…the Hillary Clinton wing of the party, the George Soros side…I don’t see they’ve changed at all,” he said.

And, the U.N. won’t be giving up either. The gun-ban NGOs are full of folks who’ve dedicated their lives to learning international law, testifying for global symposia, and using both skills burrow under the sovereignty of countries around the globe.

“They’re not going away…they’ll simply find another way to do it,“ he said. “They’ve become really a freedom-eating beast and they’ll take as much as they can get.”

As for the NRA, it’s urging its members to contact Congress, the administration, and the State Department before and during the U.N.’s conference. LaPierre naturally implores Americans to “wake up to what’s going on. That’s one of the reasons I wrote the book, 'We're From the U.N. and We Want Your Guns.' ”

“We’re gonna get in their way and we’re gonna fight them,“ he said.

Far be it from me to question Ronald Reagan, but perhaps it’s about time to rethink the scariest nine words in the English language.

“We’re from the U.N. and we want your guns.”

It’s at least a tie.

Noted Belgian Blogger Interrogated by Police for...Home Schooling His Children!

2006-06-16T11:51:00.000-07:00

Paul Belian, "distinguished editor of the free market blog The Brussels Journal, journalist, author, holder of a PhD, fluent in three languages was "summoned for interrogation" again. This time he was not tagged for disseminating divergent ideas but for....homes-schooling his children!

Belian's wife, Professor Alexandra Colen, "holds an MA in Linguistics (University of Reading, UK) and a doctorate in Germanic Philology (University of Ghent, Flanders, has lectured at the universities of Antwerp and Ghent and is the author of A Syntactic and Semantic Study of English Predictive Nominals and co-author of Vale Dale Groot Woordenboek Engles Nederlands (Van Dale Comprehensive English to Dutch Dictionary) and other linguistic books," is also not considered qualified to teach her own children.

Why? According to this report: they refuse to sign an oath..."respecting the respect (sic) for the fundamental human rights and cultural values of the child itself and of others": they defy multiculturalism and political correctness. (Convention on the Rights of the Child)

"But this is not just a matter of berserker Eurobureaucrats. Belian and Colen are publicly critical of the New European State. The Brussels Journal blieves in liberty and free markets. Such ideas cannot be allowed to flourish in Europe."

Could it happen here. This blog previously posted information about the threat directed at home-schooling by international law. (More information is made available at the Home-schoolers Legal Defense Association site.)

Last month Michael Farris, the chairman of the American Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), warned that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child could make homeschooling illegal in the U.S., even though the US Senate has never ratified this Convention.

According to some activist judges the UN Convention is “customary international law. [...] The fact that virtually every other nation in the world has adopted it has made it part of customary international law, and it means that it should be considered part of American jurisprudence.”

Under the Convention severe limitations are placed on parents’ right to direct and train their children. Under Article 13 parents could be subject to prosecution for any attempt to prevent their children from interacting with material they deem unacceptable. Under Article 14 children are guaranteed “freedom of thought, conscience and religion” – in other words, children have a legal right to object to all religious training. And under Article 15 the child has a right to “freedom of association.”

Michael Farris pointed out that in 1995 “the United Kingdom was deemed out of compliance” with the Convention “because it allowed parents to remove their children from public school sex-education classes without consulting the child.” The HSLDA chairman said that, “by the same reasoning, parents would be denied the ability to homeschool their children unless the government first talked with their children and the government decided what was best. Moreover, parents would no longer have the right to bring up their children according to their own philosophical or religious beliefs, as the government, following the guidelines of a UN “committee of experts” would determine what religious teaching, if any, served the child’s best interest.”

[...]

Under the Convention severe limitations are placed on parents’ right to direct and train their children. Under Article 13 parents could be subject to prosecution for any attempt to prevent their children from interacting with material they deem unacceptable. Under Article 14 children are guaranteed “freedom of thought, conscience and religion” – in other words, children have a legal right to object to all religious training. And under Article 15 the child has a right to “freedom of association.”

Whoa, Nellie! This means that parents have say in what their children learn or in with whom they associate. Parents can't guide their children's thoughts, according to moral principles, or prevent them from exposure to materials they feel are inappropriate.

I wonder how many parents will sit still once they learn of these regulations. My guess is that the UN regulations will be eased into the generation of children now in school that are being trained to work for the good of the group. After all, isn't that what school work is for? Improving the school and the school system, creating happy and compliant citizens?

American judges are choosing for American parents on the basis of international law:

"Thus the ultimate judge of the child's rights is the United Nations...And some activist US judges are happy to consider the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child 'accepted foreign law,' on part with the US Constitution. Even though the UN Convention was never ratified by the US Senate. They just make it up as they go along."

It appears that many laws and policies are made up as they go along and once on the books and followed without protest or being checked for validity, become common law and assailable.

"Sadly, the United States has plenty of aspiring PC Commisars, ready to destroy home schooling, free blogs, and above all, free thought...If you let them."

I also sadly agree. The story of Paul and Alexander will become commonplace...if we let them.

"Lost Boys"

2006-06-15T20:40:00.000-07:00

Why is the "terrorism cadre" mostly inhabited by young males? Jennifer Wells at Toronto Star reviews the research:

[Lionel] Tiger is the Darwin Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University. His seminal work, Men in Groups, published in 1969, coined the term "male bonding" — surely one of the catchiest catchphrases of all time — and he has remained at the forefront of research into boys as a societal class ever since.

"The terrorism of Bin Laden," Tiger wrote in Slate, "harnesses the chaos of young men, uniting the energies of political ardour and sex in a turbulent fuel."

The Boys of Bin Laden represented a microscopic subclass of extremism. Yet Tiger's essay triggered the broader, discomfiting question: Is there something in the makeup of young men that might make them especially malleable, or prime fodder, for Al Qaeda and related enterprises? In the wake of the recent arrests of five male minors among a group of 17 alleged terrorists here at home, the question yet again arises: why boys?

[...]

"Dealing with young males is the most difficult issue," he says. "They are hormonally deranged, or at least charged. They are all seeking somehow to establish themselves as potentially useful full-grown adults. They have a commitment to a kind of bonded or micro-corporate identity, which is very strong."

[...]

So being part of the group is part of our biological heritage. And status matters. "It's also part of the fact we're highly social," says Peterson. "It's probably particularly relevant for young men between the ages of 16 and 26 ... Having a group not only gives you an identity but provides you with distributed social protection."

In discussing the emotional urges of adolescence, Marc Lewis, professor of human development and applied psychology at U of T, refers to the "chemical fuel of the brain" — its neuromodulator systems. "Your goals and plans and urges get charged up," says Lewis. "However, development of the prefrontal cortex, especially the more dorsal part, is not complete."

What that means, continues Lewis, is that the "good sort of high-level thinking-ahead stuff" — planning, preparing, comparing different outcomes, adjusting strategies — doesn't finish maturing until the individual reaches his early 20s. The delay in the maturation of boys puts them, "to the extent that we know," says Lewis, about two years behind girls.

Anyone who has witnessed the fearless, risk-taking, locked-in-the-moment, need-for-speed behaviours of some young men may recognize such traits. This at a time when they are their most physically powerful, most aggressive, most at the mercy of testosterone surges.

So being part of the group is part of our biological heritage. And status matters. "It's also part of the fact we're highly social," says Peterson. "It's probably particularly relevant for young men between the ages of 16 and 26 ... Having a group not only gives you an identity but provides you with distributed social protection."

In discussing the emotional urges of adolescence, Marc Lewis, professor of human development and applied psychology at U of T, refers to the "chemical fuel of the brain" — its neuromodulator systems. "Your goals and plans and urges get charged up," says Lewis. "However, development of the prefrontal cortex, especially the more dorsal part, is not complete."

What that means, continues Lewis, is that the "good sort of high-level thinking-ahead stuff" — planning, preparing, comparing different outcomes, adjusting strategies — doesn't finish maturing until the individual reaches his early 20s. The delay in the maturation of boys puts them, "to the extent that we know," says Lewis, about two years behind girls.

Anyone who has witnessed the fearless, risk-taking, locked-in-the-moment, need-for-speed behaviours of some young men may recognize such traits. This at a time when they are their most physically powerful, most aggressive, most at the mercy of testosterone surges.

Read the rest.

"I Pledge Alliegiance to the North American Union..."

2006-06-15T10:30:00.000-07:00

"I pledge alliegiance to the North American Union?" What the hell am I talking about"

Well, you'd better get used to it.

If you think Bush was secretive about the Dubai Ports deal (which, by the way, is not dead; it's still waiting in the wings, driven underground by vigorous public outcry, until our "short attention span" permits Bush and Dubai to slip it over on us, just as the Doncaster sale to Dubai - you know Doncaster's, the British company that makes sensitive stuff for the Department of Defense - has been quietly slipped past us), just listen to the speech he will be giving today when he swears in the new "Trade Ambassador." The speech he gives will explain his policy of "easing poverty by expanding trade and demoncracy as an alternative to increasing foreign aid."

It will be the most public disclosure made to date on the "plan."

That report was given by Wendell Goler on Fox and Friends this morning, and neither Wendell, E.D., Steve, or Brian batted an eye.

Why should they? After all, it was just another speech/ceremony at the White House, wasn't it? And doesn't increased trade to "ease poverty" sound better than out-and-out foreign aid?

Sure, it sounds really benign. Don't get me wrong - I'm a huge fan of laissez-faire capitalism, a totally free market economy. I think that the best thing for everyone on the planet would be to have separation of government and economy, limiting intervention by government into the economy to those situations where the initiation of physical force and the use of fraud, or deceit need to be handled.

But as one of my heros, Thomas Sowell, has pointed out, the free exchange of goods carries with it consequences that are far different from the free exchange of peoples. We still have to know who is entering our country, for what purpose, and for how long. We cannot, for example, willy-nilly allow criminals, terrorists, or people with certain kinds of diseases enter.

We can and should permit the entrance into the country those people who have legitimate reasons to be here, people whose presence is required to support the increased economic activity generated by the free exchange of goods; managers, CEOs, clerks, programmers, researchers, laborers, etc. We should also allow, again on a monitored basis, those people who wish to enter as consumers of the increased economic activity - businesses customers, tourists, patients seeking medical attention, students seeking education, etc.

This would be a great arrangement, and it could be easily accomplished simply by removing existing barriers created and imposed by governments. There is absolutely no need to create a new entity in order to establish a system of free trade.

But this - the establishment of free trade - is merely the excuse, the disguise, being used by the governments of Canada, the United States, and Mexico to create a new mega-union called the North American Union, with free exchange not only of goods, but of people as well.

Hmmmm... Well, maybe that's not so bad...

After all, it sounds as if the three governments have merely decided to create treaties about mutual security and trade. And when you get right down to it, the opening up of trade opportunities sounds like a win-win situation. Beats the doo-doo out of having to pay out of our tax pockets for all the foreign aid we're shelling out now...

But that's not what is happening, and what is happening isn't benign; free trade is the least important part of "the plan." What the three governments have in mind, have agreed to, and have begun to implement, is the loss of our national sovereignty, up to and including our Constitution.

Surely that can't be true! Surely that is a gross exaggeration! That has to be some sort of "conspiracy theory!"

In a sort of ad hominem campaign, anyone in the past who has suggested that the U.S. will be submerged in some sort of political-military-economic arrangement with other nations has been labeled a "conspiracy theorist," running about madly waving his arms and carrying a sign about how the world is coming to an end.

I wish that it were merely a conspiracy theory, but it's for real, and what is happening now is the result of many decades of thinking and planning that began before WWI. I'll get to that a little later.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch, on March 23, 2005, in Waco, Texas, Bush, Fox, and then Prime Minister of Canada Paul Martin, signed a trilateral agreement which resulted in the creation of the SSP, or "Security and Prosperity" office as part of the Department of Commerce. There are corresponding offices in Mexico and Canada.

These offices have twenty "working groups" that deal with such issues as e-commerce, aviation policy, and borders and immingration.

The members of these "working groups" are secret; their names are not published anywhere.

Why? According to Geri Word, head of the SSP office, which is within the NAFTA office, which is in turn within the Department of Commerce, says that the reason the members of these "working groups" a kept a secret is "We do not want to get the contact people of the working groups distracted by calls from the public" (emphasis mine).

"Distracted?" Read between those lines for the real meaning: "When Bush tried to slip the Dubai Ports deal over on the "little people," they opposed it with such vigor that the whole deal had to go back underground to await a later time for it to go forward."

If you think that between Islam, terrorism, the borders, the Islamification of Europe, illegal invasions of the U.S. by who-knows-what, threats from Marxists in South America and whackos like Ahmedinejad and Kim Jong-Il etc. we have some serious problems, and if you feel as though we need to circle the wagons, you're right.

But all of these problems are related to each other and one other that will affect you, directly, by 2010, two years after the next presidential election.

What's the big deal? Well, my friends, there's trouble in River City - and in every other town in the United States. In 2010, unless something intervenes, the United States will become part of the "plan."

The "plan," which has been in the works since before WWI, is to create a single political-military-economic "bloc" out of Mexico, the United States, and Canada. The model for this is the European Union, which was Step One. We, Step Two, will be called the North American Union, and like the European Union, will have a single currency, called the "Amero."

On May 26, 2005, Katherine Harris (R-FL) sponsored a bill (H.R. 2672) that closely resembled a Senate bill (S. 853) . It sounded pretty benign, too; it was to "direct the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish a program to enhance the mutual security and safety of the United States, Canada, and Mesico, and for other purposes."

Other purposes? My, my - what could they be?

Well, the bills are intended to support the establishment of the North American Union. You can't ask the people who are on the working groups of the SSP, of course, or the Department of Commerce, or the Department of Homeland Security, because it's all hush-hush. They don't want to upset you, because if you got upset, you might pull a Dubai Ports thing on them.

But that doesn't mean that you can't get a good idea about what's up; there's the history of the whole plan, which matches up very nicely with all kinds of things in the news, including the UN's grotesque plan for a totally borderless world, where the economic problems of oppressive, unproductive governments would be "solved" by the exportation of their poor underclasses to the U.S. (this issue is the entire agenda for the United Nation's "High Level Dialogue," prepared with the help of Kofi Annan, and to be held with the opening of the General Assembly in the fall of 2006).

And then there's a task force report published by the Council on Foreign Relations called "Building a North American Community." It presents a blueprint for achieving specific objectives to expand on the trilateral SSP agreement which would merge the U.S. and Mexico and Canada into a new governmental form.

You can go to their website and get a copy of the whole report for $15.00 (and a membership list, too, unlike the SSP "working groups"). But unless you really want to shell out $15.00, here's what it says, in part: ". . .the Task Force proposes the creation by 2010 of a North American community . . . based on the . . . March 2005 Joint Statement of the three leaders that "our security and prosperity are mutally dependent and complementary. . . [within its] boundaries . . .the movement of people. . .will be legal. . . Its goal will be to guarantee a free, secure, just, and prosperous North America."

That's "govspeak" for the establishment of all the above, facilitated by the use of a North American Border Pass (to replace the use of national passports within the Union), a North American Court (above our Supreme Court), a North American Interparliamentary Group (to take precedence over the Congress), a North American Executive Commission (sort of like the President), a North American Military Defense Command (any of you U.S. military members want to serve under a Mexican commander?), a North American Customs Office, and a North American Development Bank.

And, my friends, it ain't gonna stop there. While the European Union iwas Step One, and the North American Union is to be Step Two, there are other "steps" also proposed - Africa, Asia, etc., with perhaps as many as ten such blocs or "Unions" in the pipeline.

And it won't stop there, either; ultimately, the plan is for all of these political-military-economic blocs, or "Unions," to merge into a single World Federation of States, with a single monetary system, a single military, a single justice system, a single executive system, a single set of laws, and the freedom to settle anywhere in the world by anybody who wants to do so.

I still plan to write up a history of this whole mess, but until I do, please read this and this for your amusement.

Remember the words in King Arthur's song in Camelot? "Camelot. . . a brief, shining moment . . ."

The U.S. is on the same road to oblivion as Camelot. We are watching the destruction of the only nation in all of history to be designed from scratch on the Englightenment premise that the rights of the individual take precedence over the power of government. It is simply fading from existence under our very noses.

Let's all say it together: "I pledge alliegiance to the World Federation of States. . ."

A Fresh Look At An Issue That Will Not and Should Not Be Forgotten

2006-06-15T08:24:00.000-07:00

This morning, we received an email that immediately caught our attention. It did not take long to decide to publish the contents of the email, which came under the subject "Remember Hitoshi Igarashi."

It concerns the brutal murder of the Japanese translator of the Salman Rushdie book, Satanic Verses. At the time of the novel's publication in the late 1980s, the most evil man alive, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, had issued death fatwas on Rushdie and all who helped in the publication of his novel. This was not merely a declared war on specific persons, but it was declared war from Islam on one of the most important of the fundamental freedoms and rights, known in America as the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Note the contrast with the kerfuffle about Da Vinci Code. A number of people, and not all Christians, just hate this book and rail at it. Some places have attempted to ban the book and the movie, which, of course, has created huge demand to read the novel and see the movie. BUT THERE ARE NO FATWAS AND NO CREDIBLE DEATH THREATS, unlike what happened to Salman Rushdie and his translator.

When the Rushdie affair broke into news, Bush's father was President. If, as leader of the nation built on the Rights of Man, he recognized that any more than somebody being pissed off at somebody else in some foreign country, he never let on. Never once did he rise in defense of one of most vital of freedoms, by right.

Islam showed its ugly face and uglier soul over the Rushdie affair, and we should have caught on fully about Islam right then and there, particularly after all that had gone on in the 1970s and 1980s. We certainly got the Rushdie significance, but it took a much bigger wakeup call to grasp the evil of Islam--that came later. Meanwhile, Hitoshi Igarashi was treated to the full meaning of Islam. To follow is his story which we received this morning:

Unlike some other people I do remember that although Salman Rushdie himself was not killed because of the fatwa against him by the despicable Khomeini, several translators of his book "Satanic Verses" were attacked and the Japanese translator of the book was killed.

Until recently I did not know the exact date he was slaughtered or even his name.

He was murdered on July 11. I would like to make July 11 a day for worldwide vigilance towards the threat of islamofascism. This year it will be 15 years ago that this peaceful Islamic scholar was brutally murdered. So 2006 is a good year to start with this day.

Mr Igashari was not an average victim of the islamofascists.The reason why I looked for Mr. Igarashi's name in the first place was in relation with the Danish cartoons. Via Yahoo I found this quote:

"In Beirut, the leader of Lebanon's Shiite Hizbollah said the row would never had occurred if a 17-year-old death edict against British writer Salman Rushdie been carried out."

An outrageous statement indeed but it was not the quote itself but what the news source added that appalled me most:

"Rushdie went into hiding and was never attacked."

The extremes of this wishful thinking approach continue to amaze me. He was never attacked?. He lived in hiding for many years, even Muslims suggesting to raise the fatwa have been beaten up and lost their jobs and last year the Iran islamofascists declared the death sentence on British author Salman Rushdie is still valid - 16 years after it was issued.

The military organisation, loyal to Iran 's supreme leader, said the order was "irrevocable", on the eve of the anniversary of the 1989 fatwa. The order was issued after publication of Mr. Rushdie's novel "The Satanic Verses," condemned as blasphemous.

Iran 's reformist government has in the past distanced itself from the fatwa.

Without thinking much about the subject, I somehow supposed that Mr. Igarashi was "just" a translator not objecting to translate this specific book. If Mr. Igarashi had been an average guy not thinking too much about the sensibilities of the islamofascists, the murder would have been disgusting too. But reading a little on the background of Mr. Igarashi, the story is so much sadder and more instructive.

According to this source (http://www.raglanroad.org/weblog/archives/000698.html), he opposed absolute freedom of speech and even somehow justified the fact that Khomeini came up with this act of spreading international terrorism:

"Hitoshi Igarashi was stabbed in the face and arms until he died on Tsukuba University 's campus in Ibaraki on July 11 1991. Igarashi, 44, the translator of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, is believed to have been murdered by an Iranian Shia muslim carrying out the fatwa issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini. Igarashi, known to be one of Japan's leading young Islamic scholars, a man who had lived in Iran, decided to translate Satanic Verses to act as a mediator between Khomeini (and the Muslim world) and Rushdie.

Igarashi's position was that both sides were right: Khomeini was justified in issuing the fatwa on Rushdie by virtue of his position in the Muslim clerical hierarchy; Rushdie, he argued, could be located in the lineage of mystical Sufi thought, and seen as not anti-Islamic but rather, as an Indian moved to England, more like a writer of the literature of exile, and thus not unlike Muhammad.

Igarashi's translation was not an attempt to force the Muslim world to accept the Western value of freedom of expression in an absolute form. It was a third-party effort to show common, middle ground, in order to end the conflict."

For his search for common ground, a kind of search that is suggested almost everyday now in media and politics in the Netherlands and other western countries as the right approach towards islamofascism, he paid with his life.

--
kind regards,
Frans Groenendijk

We certainly do not support Mr. Igarashi's opposition to "absolute free speech" or his justification of any evil Khomeini did, if this is true, as purported. The translator, despite being an Islamic scholar, seems to have failed to grasp the true nature of Islam, if his efforts, as purported, were to seek compromise with mind and body killers of Islam and a writer publishing a work of fiction. If this is true, the translator lived out the meaning of compromising on fundamental principles--it cannot be done.

Nevertheless, the meaning of Hitoshi Igarashi's death must not be forgotten any more than forcing the novelist into protective custody to prevent his assassination. In the history of mankind, far too many men have been at war with the mind, the Rights of Man, and necessary freedoms coming from his nature as human. In the 14 centuries of Islam, human destruction arising from hatred of the mind, of reason, of freedom, of choice have never been modified. This is why Islam, which has never been moderated, must be taken at face value and so crippled that it is pushed back into the sands and held there forever by the advocates of freedom.

"Political Correctness -- The Revenge of Marxism"

2006-06-14T20:11:00.000-07:00

Fjordman's "massive essay" at Gates of Vienna. Hattip: LGF

"Political correctness and multiculturalism are evidence that we really didn't win the Cold War."

"Meet the new leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq"

2006-06-14T19:52:00.000-07:00

at AsiaTimesOnline

Al-Qaeda caught terrorism experts and intelligence agencies around the world by surprise on Tuesday by naming Abu Hamza al-Muhajir to succeed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda leader killed in Iraq last week.

In a communique released on the Internet, al-Qaeda said Muhajir had been unanimously selected by the Shura Council of the Mujahideen, a coalition of six Sunni insurgency groups created by Zarqawi in January.

Some immediately speculated that the communique was a bluff, so obscure was the name.

However, Asia Times Online can confirm, via sources in Syria and Iraq, that Muhajir certainly does exist. He is an "intellectual" intelligence commander in al-Qaeda, not a hands-on military leader like Zarqawi. As the new commander of al-Qaeda in Iraq, he will be more of a "political prince".

Military strategy will be formulated by other veterans, such as Abu Aseel, 62, a former general in Saddam Hussein's army (who had been tipped to replace Zarqawi). Political strategy and day-to-day politics will now be handled by Muhajir - and possibly even by Osama bin Laden.

This information is supported by Muntaser al-Zayyat, a lawyer who works with Islamic groups in Egypt and who is an expert on al-Qaeda. Zayyat confirmed that Muhajir was among the circle of people who knew Zarqawi well and who had worked with him closely since 2001.

He is believed to have been born in 1965 or 1966 - making him about the same age as Zarqawi.

He was based in al-Qaim, a small town on the Syrian border 400 kilometers northwest of Baghdad, where he welcomed new troops and gave them orientation courses on al-Qaeda operations and objectives.

Recently, however, Muhajir moved to Kirkuk. If he is currently based in Kirkuk, it might explain the series of bombs that went off on Tuesday, killing 24 Iraqis and wounding another 40.

Muhajir's nationality, however, has not yet been identified. Some speculate that he is from Libya, while others claim he is from Yemen. One Islamic source whose name was not given was quoted in the London Al-Hayat newspaper as saying that Muhajir was an Iraqi "who had contributed to jihad in Afghanistan".

But this is strongly debated by those familiar with the internal dynamics of Zarqawi's al-Qaeda. Being a Jordanian himself, Zarqawi never fully trusted the Iraqis he was leading, fearing that they would abandon him in favor of a local Iraqi commander.

He surrounded himself by, and delegated authority to, only non-Iraqis and his closed circle, which comprised Yemenis, Syrians, Libyans and Saudis. If Muhajir was close to Zarqawi, he would have to have been non-Iraqi.

If he was hand-picked by bin Laden, however, he could be an Iraqi, since the al-Qaeda founder wants to mend the rifts within the Iraqi insurgency created under Zarqawi, who was bent on fomenting sectarian warfare between Sunnis and Shi'ites.

Sunnis would welcome someone like Muhajir, especially the Sunni tribes, which played an important role in expelling Zarqawi from his former hiding place in Anbar, forcing him to seek refugee in the remote village where he was tracked down and killed by the Americans. By appointing an Iraqi as head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, bin Laden would thus be trying to win over the tribes.

The lawyer Zayyat and other al-Qaeda experts say that Muhajir worked with bin Laden and lived with him in Sudan until 1995. After that, he moved to Peshawar in Pakistan and then to Afghanistan, before settling in Iraq with Zarqawi in 2001.

Others put the date after the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Since 2003, Muhajir has been in charge of recruiting young Arabs into al-Qaeda and served as chief of al-Qaeda intelligence in the Middle East and North Africa.

He travels to various Arab countries, under false passports, and meets with potential young Muslims who would be willing to join al-Qaeda in Iraq. His recruitment has reached as far as Algiers.

Since the invasion of Iraq, however, he has not been involved in Iraqi domestic issues nor in the Iraqi insurgency, concentrating on recruitment and ideological training for young Arabs. He lectures them on jihad and anti-Americanism.

Method behind the choice

The reason for the last-minute sidestepping of Abu Aseel is that since he is a former officer in the Iraqi army, Iraqis have a lot of information about him. They have his picture, his former contacts and dozens of files on him, collected over the decades. He would be a sitting duck.

Muhajir, however, is completely unknown to the Iraqis (and just about everyone else). Zarqawi had become a virtual movie star. He liked to put on a show, either directly or through a proxy, and was well known to everybody - the Americans, the Iraqis, the Syrians and the Jordanians.

As Zarqawi had been a criminal in Jordan, Jordanian intelligence had records, pictures and detailed information about his contacts, habits and character. The Saudi channel Al-Arabiya quoted a well-informed source on al-Qaeda as saying, "Muhajir has no picture or identity. He is like a ghost."

The appointment of an unknown such as Muhajir would also give bin Laden the opportunity to assert control of the Iraqi insurgency, which was forcefully captured from him by Zarqawi from 2003.

Bin Laden opposed Zarqawi's war against Iraqi citizens and the Shi'ites, claiming that this gave al-Qaeda a bad name among Muslims, preferring instead to target the Americans and those cooperating with them in the Iraqi police force and army.

Bin Laden might thus have hand-picked Muhajir as a puppet commander to ensure that he never became as strong as Zarqawi and never challenged bin Laden for command of al-Qaeda.

Since Zarqawi's death, al-Qaeda in Iraq has vowed to carry out large-scale attacks that will "shake the enemy", claiming responsibility for more than 50 attacks in the 24 hours after news of Zarqawi's killing became known.

A new face. Same struggle.

"Bin Laden might thus have hand-picked Muhajir as a puppet commander to ensure that he never became as strong as Zarqawi and never challenged bin Laden for command of al-Qaeda." We still don't know exactly who turned in Zarqawi and what was the motivation for the betrayal. Could it be that he was eclipsing bin Laden or thwarting bin Laden's will for al-Qaeda in Iraq?

And then there is talk of a power struggle within al-Qaeda as an Egyptian association of al-Zarqawi, Abu al-Masri, claims to be his successor.

War is deception and the way brutal and very public way al-Zaqawi was eliminated may give al-Qaeda leaders pause. They perhaps may want to exist unidentified in the shadows, or perhaps putting forward more than one name is an attempt to confuse, to prevent the targeting of the "leader".

Whether al-Qaeda or any other group assigns leadership to is irrelevant for the jihad needs no leaders. Jihadists can read Mohammed's mandates on multiple internet sites or in thousands of other Islamic media. The mandate is clear to all Muslims: revile and destroy the infidel using any means possible.

"West faces another 'barbarian invasion' "

2006-06-14T12:25:00.000-07:00

Western civilization faces a threat on par with the barbarian invasions that destroyed the western Roman Empire in the 5th century, warns one of Britain's most senior military strategists.

Immigrant groups from the Third World with little allegiance to their host countries could undermine Europe in a "reverse colonization," said Rear Admiral Chris Parry, according to the Times of London.

"Globalization makes assimilation seem redundant and old-fashioned . . . [the process] acts as a sort of reverse colonization, where groups of people are self-contained, going back and forth between their countries, exploiting sophisticated networks and using instant communication on phones and the Internet," he said.

Describing the threats as the new Goths and Vandals, Parry said that along with the migrations could come "barbary" pirates from northern African attacking yachts and beaches in the Mediterranean within 10 years.

"At some time in the next 10 years it may not be safe to sail a yacht between Gibraltar and Malta," said the admiral, according to the Times.

Parry, head of the development, concepts and doctrine center at Britain's Ministry of Defense, delivered the warnings at a conference last week of senior officers and industry experts.

He is responsible for identifying the greatest challenges facing national security policy in the future.

Lawmakers in Britain have made ancient Rome a serious subject of discussion this year, the London paper noted, including a book and television series by parliamentary deputy Boris Johnson drawing parallels between the European Union and the Roman Empire.

Various regions of Europe, Parry said, are threatened by factors such as radical Islam, agricultural decline, booming youth populations, water shortages and rising sea levels.

He believes that from 2012 to 2018 the current global power structure likely will crumble as a result of "irregular activity" such as terrorism, organized crime and "white companies" of mercenaries burgeoning in lawless areas.

Meanwhile, nations such as China, India, Brazil and Iran will challenge America's sole superpower status, Parry said.
The effects will be magnified as borders become more porous and some areas lose government control.

"When one thinks of 20,000 so-called jihadists currently fly-papered in Iraq, one shudders to think where they might go next," he said.

The mass population movements could lead to the "Rome scenario," he asserts, referring to the collapse of the western Roman Empire in the 4th and 5th centuries when groups such as Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Suevi, Huns and Vandals flooded its borders.

Rome eventually was taken over in 455 in an invasion from northern Africa by Geiseric the Lame, king of the Alans and Vandals.

Parry estimates in Britain alone there already are 70 diasporas.

Speaking with tongue-in-cheek, Parry said some of the consequences of this scenario would be beyond human imagination to address, including, "No wind on land and sea; third of population dies instantly; perpetual darkness; sores; Euphrates dries up 'to clear way for kings from the east'; earth's core opens."

Rear Admiral Parry could have mentioned the Viking invasions of Europe, Russia, and the British Isles, Angles and Saxons into Britain after the retreat of the Romans, the Mongols, Turkik nomads into China, the Chinese into Japan, Europeans into the Americas, and the thousands of other migrations and invasions that have occurred over the centuries.

The story is the same: Migration upon migration, invasion upon invasion, have come and gone, and yet, modern man is shocked and surprised to learn that his neighbor finds life at home inconvenient and wants to move in where picking are better to conquer or displace him.

"The Mental Path to Appeasement"

2006-06-14T11:41:00.000-07:00

Tony Blankley compares the pre-World War II mindset of the British to that of the present American hierarchy: both realize the danger and hope that appeasement will hope it will go away.

General McCaffrey --- Iran will get the bomb, regardless of what we do or say, so let's do diplomacy to make it all better:

"Mr. Russert: "So it's inevitable they get the nuclear bomb, in your opinion?"

Gen McCaffrey: "I think so. I think they're going nuclear five, 10 years from now. We'll be confronted. And that's not a good outcome. That argues that perhaps Saudi money and Egyptian technology gets a Arab Sunni bomb to confront the Persian Shia bomb. None of us want to see proliferation in the Gulf. This is a time for serious diplomatic intervention."

The last sentence calling for diplomacy is such a feeble, mantra-like invocation of a hopeless solution when preceded by his confident statements that he thinks they want the bomb and will get it. Virtually no one believes Iran only wants peaceful nuclear generation. Neither do serious people believe that enactable economic and diplomatic sanctions will deflect the Iranians from their objective.

[...]

Contrary to popular history, the British government was under little illusion concerning Hitler's nature and objectives in the early 1930s.
     Those illusions only emerged as mental rationalizations later in the 1930's.
     In April 1933, just three months after Hitler became chancellor of Germany, the British government presciently assessed the man and his plans. The outgoing British ambassador to Germany, Sir Horace Rumbold, who had been closely observing Hitler for years, reported back to London in a special dispatch to the prime minister on April 26, 1933. He warned his government to take "Mein Kampf" seriously.
     He assessed that Hitler would resort to periodic peaceful claims "to induce a sense of security abroad." But that he planned to expand into Russia and "would not abandon the cardinal points of his program," but would seek to "lull adversaries into such a state of coma that they will allow themselves to be engaged one by one." The ambassador was sure that "a deliberate policy is now being pursued, whose aim was to prepare Germany militarily before her adversaries could interfere." He also warned that Hitler personally believed in his violent anti-Semitism and that it was central to his government policy. Back in London, Major General A.C. Temperley briefed the prime minister on the Rumbold dispatch that if Britain did not stop Hitler right away, the alternative was "to allow things to drift for another five years, by which time ... war seems inevitable." In the event, general war in Europe came in six years, not five.
     But because the British people, still under the sway of their memory of WWI, were against military action, and because the politicians wanted to spend precious tax revenues on domestic programs, they walked away from their own good judgment.
     The unpleasantness of dealing with Hitler and the public's abhorrence of another war led the new British ambassador to Germany, Sir Eric Phipps, responding to the Rumbold dispatch, to argue in that fateful month of April of 1933 that "We cannot regard him solely as the author of 'Mein Kampf,' for in such a case we should logically be bound to adopt the policy of preventive war." So, he argued, "The best hope is to bind him, that is, by a [disarmament] agreement bearing his signature freely and proudly given ... By some odd kink in his mental make-up he might even feel compelled to honour it." Here we have the 1930s version of Gen. McCaffrey's statement. Ambassador Phipps first states the obvious: To wit, if Hitler is as the government believes him to be, logic requires a preventive war. But they don't want to do that, so he hopes Hitler isn't as they know him to be, and they seek a diplomatic agreement, which even Phipps recognized was unlikely to be honored.
     Just so, Gen. McCaffrey, representing the overwhelming view of government officials and major media in the West, first states the obvious: Iran will get the bomb. Then he ends with so let's just do diplomacy.
     In fact, Western leaders are resigned to Iran getting the bomb. The diplomacy is understood to be as pointless as getting Hitler to honor a disarmament treaty. But "leaders" have to be seen to be doing something — even if they know it is futile.
     This defeatist attitude exists largely because of the bad precedent of the Iraq war — just as WWI was a bad precedent for another war in 1933. As an emotional response to unpleasantness, military action has been placed out of the question by a weary Western elite.

For some reason ordinary see the problem and the answer with more clarity than do the elite: appeasement heartens the enemy to bring on more discrimination and violence.

"Mexican candidates promise modernization"

2006-06-13T08:02:00.000-07:00

Mexican politicians are at it again, promising this and that in a race among three contenders, they've learned from American politics that wooing voters isn't so easy. Perhaps this is why they are following the age-old tradition of "pork", promising to spend big to get the vote. However, Mexico needs big spenders to improve infrastructure and to improve the lives in general of the majority of the population that have been neglected for so long. Here are some proposals:

"A lot of the projects that the candidates are talking about do seem to be white elephants," said Jonathan Heath, chief economist for the Mexico unit of HSBC bank.

Roberto Madrazo, trailing in third place ahead of the July 2 election, sought to revive his campaign this month by announcing plans for an astonishing 1,027 infrastructure and development projects.

Madrazo's Institutional Revolutionary Party ruled Mexico from 1929 to 2000. For most of that era, all-powerful presidents could spend at will, unencumbered by congressional oversight or fiscal discipline.

But leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has seen those ambitions and raised him a few, including plans for 30 new public universities during his six-year term.

Lopez Obrador wants to build a bullet train from Mexico City to the Texas border. And he plans rail and road links from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific to rival the Panama Canal, and highways where there are now only goat paths.
As Mexico City mayor from 2000-2005, Lopez Obrador built miles of double-decker expressways and a free city university.
But the expressways have created their own traffic snarls, and many question the value of the university, which has no entrance exam, gives no grades, and whose 11 degree programs lean heavily toward the social sciences and community activism.

Lopez Obrador's main rival, Felipe Calderon of the ruling National Action Party, isn't sitting this competition out.
He is pledging to crisscross Mexico with new roads and build water treatment and distribution systems — less visible but sorely needed projects.

Calderon and Lopez Obrador are running nearly even, according to most polls.
To some extent, it's traditional politicking.

"Voters do want to see public works," political analyst Federico Estevez said.

The candidates aren't the only ones proposing spending programs. Carlos Slim, "a Mexican telecommunications magnate and the world's third-richest man, has launched a construction and infrastructure company and is pressing the candidates to commit to dozens of new building projects." Worth $30 billion, Slim would profit from the candidates proposals, but at the same time, according to Slim and others, the use of "low interest rates, economic stability and high foreign reserves represent a gold opportunity for Mexico to make a great leap forward."

"What really would be important for Mexico is to break the barrier of underdevelopment, and we are not far from breaking it," Slim said recently.

According to the article, the politicians involved in this year's race are stuck in the 70s, an era in which now abandoned government projects abounded:

In the 1970s, high oil prices produced soaring buildings and mammoth industrialization projects that fueled the development of entire manufacturing towns.

Lopez Obrador and Madrazo seem marked by that era. Both began their political careers in the 1970s, and both are from the oil-producing Gulf coast state of Tabasco, where the landscape is dominated by two things: swamps and big government projects.

In his first big government job, as director of Tabasco's Indian development agency, Lopez Obrador created subsistence farming plots for landless Indians by scooping soil out of lagoons and piling the dirt into narrow, artificial fingers of land.
"It's classic for swampland politicians. You get a lot of mileage by draining the swamps, like Florida politicians 80 years ago," Estevez said.

Many of the artificial plots now stand abandoned, but the government-funded construction boom continues — notably in Tepetitan, Lopez Obrador's hometown. The current local government, headed by his brother, Jose Ramiro, built a large concrete bridge that leads to nearly impassable dirt roads.

History has not been kind to government projects. By the 1980s, Mexico's oil boom had ended, and the country woke up to a hangover of debt and the realization that many projects had been badly planned and poorly executed.
But candidates in the presidential race vow not to repeat that mistake. Lopez Obrador says he will fund his building spree by reducing waste and high salaries in government. Calderon touts private investment.

Mexico needs investment and improvement. So far the only improvement seems to be generated at the grassroots level using the billions of dollars generated annually by remittances. Ordinary Mexicans have organized outside of Mexico by townships, villages, and neighborhoods, creating programs to send home money, expertise, and other amenities that the government either can not or will not provide. Nevertheless, more could be done at the level of government.
First, a taxes could be doubled so that there is sufficient money to pay improvements. Mexicans tax themselves at half the rate of the United States and wealthy Mexicans have learned how to avoid paying taxes at all. (They must have learned that trick from America's or even the wealthy of Europe.)

Next, laws could be changed that would encourage foreign investment and ownership. Why would a foreign investor want to invest in a country that could, at any minute, neutralize investment by nationalizing industries and confiscating infrastructure and property.

Politicians will promise anything to get elected but do they really want to deliver?

"U.S. Marines Build Shrine to Islam" --- Saudi Style!

2006-06-13T07:31:00.000-07:00

For years we have been reading how Islam has penetrated the U.S., infiltrating the government and other institutions at the highest level. Saudi Arabia, flush with petro-dollars, has bought its way in. Saudi influence is particularly more dangerous because of the hate-filled brand of Islam that it espouses. Incredibly a Saudi-inspirted shrine has been dedicated for Marines at Quantico "so Muslim service members can have a 'proper place' to worship, and one that 'honors their religious heritage' ".

It's incredible to learn that duped Quantico and Pentagon officials remain oblivious to the dangerous a possible Saudi-inspirted fifth column right there within the Pentagon, within the FBI and the CIA, right there at the pinnacle of power.

Apparently a graduate of a hardline Wahhabi school in Virginia, Navy Lt. Abuhena Mohammed Saifulislam, better known as Saifu, has smoothed the way by claiming to be "moderate".

Born in Bangladesh, he insists that he is "only a Sunni Muslim and does not adhere to the faith's more orthodox and militant Wahhabi sect practiced by Osama bin Laden and his ilk [but shouldn't] his pro-jihadic background...raise flags at the Pentagon"? Apparently not.

According to an article by Paul Sperry at FrontPage, Saifa has done a lot for the Wahabbism besides building them a chapel:

• convinced the military to provided halal meals (at three times the cost) - "The Gitmo menu now boasts 113 Muslim-appropriate meals for the benefit of finicky terrorist tummies."
• Gitmo detainees "now wake to the sound of Muslim chaplains calling them to prayer instead f barking dogs or guards, who are now trained in Muslim sensitivity."
• Gitmo detainees "can brush up on jihad by reading paperback Pentagon-issued copies of the Koran" and "finger prayer beads and wear makeshift turbans and skull caps"

One wonders how they can be turned from the path of jihad as they are allowed to a wallow in it even while imprisoned at Gitmo!

Our Navy lieutenant also ministered to Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, "a fellow Muslim charged with desertion, just before he went AWOL again last year. Hassoun deserted his post in Iraq where he served as an Arabic translator. After he was captured, and after he met with the Quantico imam, he deserted again." The lieutenant obviously had little effect on the Marine...or did he?

The U.S. military has long used simulations to provide troops realistic training. Simulations in cultural and religious sensitivity gives troops valuable insight into the mentality of the enemy and populations among which they will be operating. However, the creation of the Wahhabist chapel at Quantico smacks of deception as setting out signs to pull in interested or curious personnel is Da'wa, or calling to Islam. And how does Sperry put it?

Instead, it's giving him [Saifulisam] a permanent taxpayer-supported platform from which to convert grunts to Islam. With the Quantico mosque, the Pentagon is facilitating the study of the holy texts the enemy uses, heretically or not, as their manual of war. This is tantamount to the Marines setting up a Mein Kampf reading room during WWII.

Let's hope that someone at the Pentagon is keeping tabs on Saifulislam that they take note of which Service Members are corrupted by his program.

"Scoundrels Meet, Women Beaten" - The Pictures Tell the Story

2006-06-13T00:18:00.000-07:00

An entry in "This makes me want to scream" files.

Three guesses as to the identity of those scoundrels...and for one once, there is not an American to be seen!

The result of Sha'ria law. Do we want to continue importing Islam into the West? More specifically, in one hundred years, will this be a common sight on the streets of America?

Power to the People...the Mexican People

2006-06-13T00:05:00.000-07:00

From the "I Want to Scream Files". I have nothing against Mexico or Mexicans. However, I am not in favor of the mass migration into the United States of any group.

" 'Mexican Power' -- What American Politicians Don't Want to Know."

Here is a disturbing article in which Allan Wall demonstrates that the Mexico is complicit in sending us all those immigrants. Be sure to follow the internal links.

If you read Spanish, go directly to the animated map. Follow the directions for eye full. In his article, Wall gives further explanation and additional links.

Although this makes me furious, I can't help but think that somehow the established American hierarchy is also complicit. It appears that someone didn't pay attention in history class on the days they discussed the Mexican-American War and the aftermath. And they seem to be oblivious to the century-and-a-half of seething resentment on the part of Mexicans since that period.

What were they thinking? Perhaps 'Mexican Power' is the result of unintended consequences on their part. If so the morons have been outsmarted and, naturally, the rest of us will pay the price.

Here we go again: To Americans and others --- Just shut up and pay up!

2006-06-12T03:55:00.000-07:00

From: "The Stalking Horse for Global Taxes"

"Innovative sources of financing", If you should hear these words come out of the mouths of United Nation's officials, among other catch phrases, grab your wallets and check your bank account balances.

I've said it before: the United Nations, that bastion of corruption and incompetence, has designs on the stream of American, Japanese and taxpayer dollars of other developed nations. (But then again, who doesn't?)

Why would France's Jacque Chirac pair with UN Secretary Kofi Annan to push forward a new international tax on international airline tickets for passage from France? Why are they interesting in taxes which [are] designed to be the precursor of an array of global taxes? These taxes so far include:

• international financial transactions
• fuel
• the internet

Annan, Chirac and others are in a power game against the United States. Each has a different goal in mind. "Chirac, for his part has always seen global governance under a strong United Nations as a counterweight to the United States. "Annan, likes the idea because it reduces his dysfunctional organization's financial dependency on the American people." And, leaders of many of the developing country, "who want to run the UN as their own fiefdom while paying next to nothing for the privilege are using their collective voting power in the General Assembly to block any budgetary controls and managerial reforms insisted upon by the two member states paying over 40% of the freight": the United States and Japan."

Global taxes would "blunt any power of the purse of the governments or other developed countries may currently have [as] a means of leverage to counterbalance the irresponsible spending sprees that General Assembly approves. This is because the UN would be deriving substantial revenue through global taxes imposed on individuals or companies, rather than depending on budget approvals and dues payments by the wealthier member state governments."

Revenue derived from individuals and companies means global trade transactions. All those purchases of goods exported and imported; international telephone calls, bank and stock transactions, and so on: the tax possibilities are endless.

Global taxes - what the UN bureaucrats euphemistically refer to as “innovative sources of financing” - are the preferred mechanism of the parasites to keep their UN gravy train going without any real accountability to anyone. However, these leeches conveniently forget that the United Nations is an organization of sovereign countries according to the United Nations Charter, not a sovereign entity unto itself. The UN is only accountable to its member states from which it receives its funding in the form of dues and voluntary contributions. The UN remains subject to the fiscal control of its member states - unless its Charter is amended. The UN Charter provides for no other mechanism for funding and surely not for global taxes which, in any case, would violate one of our most fundamental principles of self-government and national sovereignty under our own Constitution. Nor would it matter if the Senate were to ratify a treaty with a global tax provision, if the treaty itself violates the Constitution by giving to an unaccountable foreign institution a non-delegable power that only our elected representatives can exercise. And it is safe to say that most Americans would firmly oppose having to pay any such illegitimate levies. That is why the global tax proponents want to start with something that they hope to keep under the radar, so to speak, like the international airline tax.

As just about every about everything: goods, services, and commodities are now traded internationally, these "under the radar taxes" will become UN cash cows, taxes levied without representation and without our consent.

I wonder if international tax revenues was on the agenda of the recent conference of the Bilderberg group that met June 8-11, 2006 in Ottawa. Could they counter the United Nations or are they concocting their own schemes to pick our pockets?

Ya' Know What GITMO Needs?

2006-06-11T13:50:00.000-07:00

O'Reilly visited San Islamia Prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Friday. After the suicide report, he stated that he learned that the bleeding heart "prisoner rights" handwringers had pressured the military to paint cell windows black so that the prisoners could have more privacy. Three of them were able to commit suicide over the weekend in full privacy. That's rich: Be careful what you ask for...

But, the three prisoners-for-life used their bedsheets in all that privacy to commit suicide.

It is obvious what GITMO needs: More sheets!

Can We Talk? Or, Is It a "Betrayal" for Atheists to Befriend or Work With People of Faith?

2006-06-10T12:33:00.000-07:00

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Several times in the past few weeks, someone calling himself an "Objectivist" (one who subscribes to the philosophy of Objectivism) has expressed disappointment with us, saying that he/she was referred here because it was an "Objectivist" blog. We were criticized because, he/she contended, George Mason and Cubed couldn't be considered "true Objectivists."

The reason?

We have partnered with a religious person in the fight against the greatest threat to our civilization ever encountered - Islam, and a philosophically related problem, globalism.

This partnership, our young friend insists, is a betrayal of Objectivism. This is so, he/she says, because (among other things) "true" Objectivists find "faith" - the acceptance of something in the absence of evidence or proof - an invalid means of acquiring knowledge.

I see this as a non-sequitur. How our lack of faith and our partner's belief in faith make the partnership a "betrayal" to our philosophy, I find ridiculous. We do not find our confidence in the validity of Objectivism shaken or diluted in the least by the fact that many of our friends and our partner at this Blog are people of faith, and while we disagree with them on several issues, we understand that they have the right to believe whatever they wish.

We have never hidden our philosophy for fear of "offending" people of faith. We have never tried to impose our philosophy on people of faith. We have, on occasion, discussed points of disagreement, but we see none of this either as a "betrayal" of our philosophy or a threat to their right to believe.

Now some of you may not know why a philosophy would be called "Objectivism." What do we "object" to? To clarify, it isn't called "Objectivism" because we are a bunch of "objectors," but because we look at reality in an "objective" light.

There are two fundamental ways of looking at reality; the one WE espouse as Objectivists is called "the primacy of existence." The Primacy of Existence means that existence exists, whether or not there is some form of consciousness to perceive it. It's the old "tree falling in the forest" thing, where someone asks, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, is there a sound?" An objective person (at least on this issue) will tell you that sound consists of vibrations traveling through a medium such as air or water. These vibrations exist independent of any entity able to perceive it.

There is another fundamental way of viewing existence, and that is called "the primacy of consciousness." This is the belief that existence does not exist independent of a consciousness to perceive it, but that it is actually a product of some consciousness (either a human consciousness, or perhaps the consciousness of some entity from a distant galaxy, or even as revelations to humans through a divine consciousness).

So a non-objective view holds that there is no sound if there is no one there to hear it. I won't burden you here with whether the tree is there either, if there is no consciousness to perceive it, or air for the vibrations to travel through, or even whether consciousness is an entity that exists as part of existence, for that matter. But never mind...

That's a brief description of the Objectivist slant on reality - it's "objective," not "objecting." We see reality "as is," not the way we wish it were, etc. We are so confident that existence exists apart from our ability to perceive it, and that it follows natural law, that we love to say "reality always wins in the end." You know why that is - we believe that reality is all that there is.

Anyway, this person's "objections" (he/she is a true "objector") doesn't like the fact that we work with religious people. To this person, our desire to work with people of faith constitutes a "betrayal" of our "cause." We have pointed out to this objector that for us, Objectivism is a way of life, not a cause.

It isn't unusual for young people to view their new-found philosophical home, be it reality-based or faith-based, with the kind of excitement and fervor often seen among supporters of a "cause," and while we would love to see a world full of people who function from the metaphysical position of the primacy of existence, and while we enjoy talking about our philosophy with others, we do not view having friends among, or working with, people of faith as a moral issue.

I think that this person failed to read our banner with care (if at all):

"Principle-focused, analytic opinions about current events, trends, and threats from Fifth Column elements of the 'unholy alliance' between international and national anti-American Left (including Islamia) as well as any on the Right who choose anti-reason. All of this site is 'political-correctness' free and 'multiculturalism' free. SIXTH COLUMN works hand-in-glove with our website 6TH COLUMN AGAINST JIHAD (About Us on this website describes our focus).

"All opinions belong to our blogger authors and are never edited, even though some may differ from our Objectivist orientation."

There. That's what it says. The bold part acknowledges that we work with people who don't share our philosophy in its entirety.

Both Robert Spencer, director of Jihadwatch, and Jason Pappas, at Liberty and Culture, have written superb essays on this very point. Spencer is a devout Christian, while Jason Pappas is an Objectivist.

Here are the two essays:

Monday, March 13, 2006

Two Methods of Attack
(Jason Pappas)

Civilization faces the threat of a resurgent Islam, a vast growing movement to revive the jihadist ideals exemplified by Islam’s founder, Mohammad, and the imperialist warrior ideology of the early Caliphate. Amidst the vast denial of Islam’s inherent threat to civilization, there are two distinct but related intellectual camps that are able to face the harsh reality of this vicious ideology. One camp fights Islam under the banner of the Enlightenment while the other waves the flag of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The purpose of this article is to describe these two different approaches, how they grapple with the jihadist ideology, and how they arrive at much the same conclusion but organize their knowledge around different conceptual centers.

The Enlightenment Viewpoint

The Enlightenment camp is a broad group that includes secular classical liberals and modern left-liberals. In both sub-groups there is an emphasis on Islam as a religious reductio ad absurdum that rejects reason for blind faith, disparages reality for an after-life in another realm, banishes independent thought in submission to a dogmatic tradition, and prohibits individual liberty to establish religious theocracy. Islam is an example of a full and consistent rejection of the core virtue of Western culture whose roots go back to Ancient Greece: rationality.

The Enlightenment critique centers the analysis on process: reason, empiricism, skepticism, and liberty—the high points of the Anglo-American Enlightenment and shared to some extent by the Continental Enlightenment before its decent into the collectivist/relativist decay of the 19th and 20th century.The spirit is captured by Thomas Jefferson: “Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." The Enlightenment camp, as a very broad group, advocates the primacy of reason as the means to understand nature, both natural and social. The origin of reason to human affairs originated in Ancient Greece after philosophy moved from the cosmological period to the anthropological period; Socrates countered the relativists of his day, the Sophists, by arguing that philosophy can establish ethical knowledge to govern human affairs. Aristotle wrote the first treatise on ethics in human history; he applied Hellenic rationalism to natural observations of human flourishing and character excellence.The Latin Christian tradition absorbed Hellenic rationalism in a fundamental manner that Orthodox Christians failed to do. Thomas Aquinas championed Aristotle thereby setting the foundation for a transformation of Western thought. Aristotle’s potent empiricism (for example Darwin admired his biological studies) was at times little understood as his work was unfairly associated with the faults of the Catholic Church. However, in human affairs, the founding fathers were arduous students of political history in a manner reminiscent of Aristotle exhaustive study of the constitutions of his day.In ethical and political thought, the Anglo-American tradition’s empirical disposition, while not without its faults, remained grounded in a reality-based practice that avoided the extremes of continental collectivist ideology.

The privatization of religion leaves the common ground of social affairs within the realm of rational discourse. Even America’s traditionalist conservatives speak of religion as a disposition. Talking about religion at the time of the American Revolution, Paul Johnson, in A History of the American People, says it was a “specifically American form of Christianity – undogmatic, moralistic rather than creedal, tolerant but strong … an ecumenical and American type of religious devotion …”

Today, we see the Enlightenment critique of Islam in books by Sam Harris and Ibn Warraq; and in articles by David Kelley and Peter Schwartz. It is common in Europe where Pim Fortuyn, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Oriana Fallaci attack Islam from a secular perspective.

The Judeo-Christian Critique of Islam

While the secular Enlightenment camp rightly points to a vast difference—of degree—between Western religions and Islam, the critics of Judeo-Christian camp will insist there is a difference in kind. If the secular camp critiques Islam’s backwardness based on process—a faith fully consuming and preempting rational reality-based thought—the Judeo-Christian critic immediate zooms in on the content: the ethical doctrines and myths of the Islamic faith. Islam’s origin and its key figure are unique: rarely in history does one find a religion founded by a warrior and dominated by that example. Mohammad set a very different example than Jesus. Mohammad was a man of war who committed atrocities in his quest to create a culture of domination, submission and servitude. This is clearly not a moral man by any stretch of the imagination.The Judeo-Christian camp sees the West’s moral base derived from the Bible; and religion as the only foundation for morality. Modern secularism is dominated by relativism and materialism, which holds that human nature, lacking volition, needs no code of ethics; nature or nurture determines individual character. This no-fault worldview is a nihilistic attack on traditional American values.

In the Judeo-Christian camp is Lawrence Auster, Joseph Farah, Robert Spencer, Paul M. Weyrich, Don Feder, etc.The Western tradition, however, is Greco-Roman as well as Judeo-Christian. It is far from trivial to do an attribution analysis. St. Paul, whose writing comprises 40% of the New Testament, was an educated Hellenistic Jew. Augustine was educated in Greek and Roman philosophy. Aquinas is one of history’s foremost scholars of Aristotle. Traditionalists tend to respect the totality under the banner of Western Civilization. But by doing so they have often been the standard bearers, by default, of much of the Hellenic inheritance as post-modern intellectuals exhibit a hostility to the Aristotelian worldview—and the American ideals.

Content vs. Process

Both camps correctly see Islam as an outlier. For the Enlightenment camp, Islam differs from modernity by being religious and Islam differs from today’s Christianity by a vast difference in degree. For the Judeo-Christian camp, Islam differs from Christianity by being a different kind of a religious ideology inspired by a completely different kind of prophet. These two camps differ on how they’d describe the core nature of the West: reason based on our Greco-Roman secular heritage or religious morality based on our Judeo-Christian heritage. The differences between Islam and Christianity, in content, create extra hurdles for Islam that prohibit any significant integration with reason and modernity. Moderation in Arab and Muslim nations in the past has come with Islam’s marginalization. Islam is inherently an illiberal political ideology. In terms of doctrine, it has far less play to allow the emergence of a large-scale sustainable moderate yet profoundly religious practice. However, the relationship between the intractable illiberal oppressiveness of Islam and its extreme practice of intellectual submission to dogma and authority are intimately related. Such oppressive backwardness, given what mankind has achieved in every sphere of human activity, requires a mind closed to reason, pumped-up with irrational hate, and frozen by fear. Islam requires extreme blind faith and obedience because of the extent that its teachings are at odds with living a full life in a free society. If Islam is to be practiced in full, and not merely perfunctory or selectively practiced, it will lead to continued impoverishment, oppression, war, and death.

It is interesting that the post-modern left, to retain its dream of socialism after all the evidence of its failure and capitalism’s success, needs to maintain the epistemologically nihilistic doctrine of postmodernism that denounces the very concept of truth. Both flee from reality to hold on to cherish dogma. And they are united by a common enemy: America.

The Challenges for Each Camp

Secular critics need to avoid a conflation of Islam and Christianity that is achieved by ignoring the vast differences of degree. This is common with the multi-cultural left that either claims Christianity is no better or that Islam is no worse. This absurdly ignores reality: Christians today aren’t driven by a religious fervor to fly planes into buildings, killing peaceful members of civilization, in an attempt to take the world back to the Dark Ages. And Islamic nations have not established tolerant societies that respect individual rights, reason and science (except for transitory isolated exceptions). Furthermore, to claim that Islam has the potentiality to reform like Christianity can not be asserted a priori.

Upon investigation there are severe barriers due to the specific content of Islam that makes such prospects a pipedream. To ignore the vast differences between the religions of Islam and Christianity obliterates crucial distinctions that serve no other purpose but to drive a needless wedge between secular and Christian opponents of Islam. The relativist left buckles under the weight of its moral skepticism and inability to trumpet our superiority over barbaric cultures like Islam. Their approach is a dead end both figuratively and literally. Those approaching the Islamic threat from a secular perspective have to rely on the certainly of moral absolutes that were standard in secular philosophic thought before the subjectivism of the last two centuries. Tolerance of rights isn’t based on moral skepticism. Nothing follows from wholesale skepticism.

The religious camp faces a challenge it has assiduously hoped to avoid: the examination of the doctrines of different religions. Traditionalists once Anglo-American culture was described as Protestant (with a Calvinist emphasis), then Christian (to include Catholics) and finally Judeo-Christian (to include Jews.) The ecumenical spirit required glossing over differences in content. This general disposition embodied the notion that all long-established religions held the equally valid moral traditions.

Communism helped convince many that this was true. The resurgence of Islam threatens the ecumenical spirit. To delve into the content of this religion opens a Pandora’s Box that conservatives instinctively fear may revive religious disharmony.However, the ecumenical spirit is unnecessary if religion is a private matter. If public disputes are subject to reality-checks applying reason to human history and appreciating the ethical principles that make civilization possible, we can settle disputes and live in harmony. Private matters, like religion, remain private. Thus, the secularization of society protected by individual rights makes a natural diversity possible. Islam, being inherently a political ideology, is incompatible with a pluralistic secular society of equal rights and mutual respect.

In Summary

A worldview isn’t created or altered by simple arguments; it is an integrating philosophy that spans a lifetime. The threat of Islam, like the threat of communism for previous generations, will encourage us to take stock of our cultural resources and strengths.

The first order of business is to face the fact that there is a vast difference between them and us; then we can move on to the question of what has made our culture great. The latter should be an enjoyable and ongoing debate. Taking inventory at this stage shows core groups in every camp are up to the challenge but we have a majority of people who are still in denial about the severity of the problem—for several reasons, some of which were mentioned above.

In summary, the two approaches emphasize two aspects of the same problem, process and content. Blind faith is required to support an oppressive religious ideology. The nature of Islam requires this methodology. Religion in the West has accepted the coin of reason in everyday affairs while the Greco-Roman tradition, which dominated secular thought before the rise of relativism, provided a solid foundation for the ethical truths that were once widely accepted. Islam fails to fit with neither contemporary tolerant Christianity nor traditional Enlightenment rationality. Islam is the odd man out. As we avoid secular relativism, promiscuous religious ecumenicalism, and religious dogmatism, we can unite against the common threat.

May 19, 2006

Should one ally with those with whom one disagrees?
(Robert Spencer )

Paul Weyrich once told me that I should never hesitate to ally with someone with whom I had disagreements on some issues. Allies are hard to come by in any case, and agreement on one issue didn't require agreement on all issues. There are some with whom one should never ally, but they are few. I think it's good advice.

This is important today, as I have called repeatedly for Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists and others to unite against the global jihad. This will require working with people with whom one disagrees.

This has come up because Lawrence Auster, a conservative writer, has been attacking me on a more or less regular basis lately for defending Hirsi Ali and other sins -- including the contention that I'm a "neoconservative." So I write this not to convince Auster of anything, but to try to clarify these issues for people of good will who may read this. It isn't important if Auster thinks what I am doing is conservative or neoconservative or liberal or yellow or blue. The jihad targets conservatives and liberals and neocons alike.

But he is attempting to portray me as actually opposing the West, and playing into the hands of the jihadists. He says, referring to me and people like me: He sees himself as a defender of a besieged Judeo-Christian civilization which he hopes to save and restore. These feelings and allegiances make him a conservative; certainly they make him one in his own eyes. But what does this civilization to which Spencer the conservative is devoted consist of? It consists of a “vision of human dignity,” of “principles of the equality of dignity of all people, the freedom of conscience, and the other principles that are derived ultimately from Judaism and Christianity.” These are all liberal principles, as Spencer himself makes clear when he says of them, not that they are Jewish and Christian, but that they are derived from Judaism and Christianity. Liberalism is, of course, the secularized offshoot of Christianity. And it is to this liberal ideal that Spencer has given his heart...

The opposition that he sets up here is absurd. Because I speak of values derived from Judaism and Christianity, therefore I somehow oppose or don't value Judeo-Christian civilization itself? The equality of dignity of all people and the freedom of conscience are affirmed by the Catholic Church at the Second Vatican Council and in the Catechism of the Catholic Church as principles derived from the nature of man as created in God's image. These aren't Christian principles, but liberal ones and somehow ultimately anti-Christian ones? I know that strong statements of the freedom of conscience can be found as far back as St. Augustine -- another notorious neo-con, no doubt. And the equality of dignity of all people is as old as Genesis' statement about men and women being created in the image of God. If Auster thinks that defending them is somehow "neoconservative" and "liberal" and opposed to an authentic defense of Judeo-Christian civilization, I would submit that he has a narrow, pinched, idiosyncratic and ahistorical view of that civilization. His thesis is based on his false statement that I have "often spoken, not in terms of defending the West from Islam, but of defending 'secular values' from Islam."

In fact, to support his statements he refers (and can refer) only to one article, in which I used "secularism" to mean "non-establishment." I acknowledged that was imprecise (because "secular values" can be taken to mean the relativist materialism of modern culture, which I do not endorse) when he attacked me on it at the time, and have not repeated it. In contrast, I have referred countless times, as anyone who reads this site can attest, to the need to defend "the West."But Auster doesn't seem to have much interest in factual accuracy, but rather exhibits a taste for ad hominem smears.

Not only does he sling the mud at Hirsi Ali and me, but at Jihad Watch Board member Ibn Warraq. He scores "Ibn Warraq’s aggressive, wise-guy atheism" and says he told Andrew Bostom: “You’ve got to tell Warraq that if he wants the support of conservatives, he can’t go around mocking God and attacking Christianity. His subject is Islam, he should stick to that and not attack religion in general.” He adds: "I said this to him several times, with utmost seriousness. I said Christians can work with secularists, if there is mutual tolerance. The message never got through."

Oh really? I called Andy Bostom myself about this. It's true that Ibn Warraq is an atheist, and that he attacked Christianity in "Why I Am Not A Muslim" in a way that I thought was gratuitous -- although even there he compares Jesus favorably to Muhammad, as I do in Islam Unveiled and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). And I wouldn't characterize even the material in "Why I Am Not A Muslim" as an "aggressive, wise-guy" attack. It's a reasoned discussion of historical criticism -- I disagree with it, but that doesn't make it shrill or hysterical. Anyone who knows Ibn Warraq personally knows that he just isn't the "aggressive, wise-guy" type, but is courteous, cultured, erudite, witty, measured, and scholarly.

Anyway, since "Why I Am Not A Muslim" I have never seen Ibn Warraq speak or write about Christianity; I called to ask Andy if he had, since Auster had ostensibly spoken with him about it. No, Andy said; "Why I Am Not A Muslim" was written over ten years ago, and Ibn Warraq doesn't speak about Christianity now, and in fact he speaks -- and is well-received by -- Evangelical audiences. (More liberals, no doubt.) What's more, Andy told me that he explained all this to Auster -- but there is no trace of that in Auster's smear of Ibn Warraq.

Anyway, the heart of Auster's pique at me is that he believes that by defending Hirsi Ali, an atheist liberal, I am allying with someone who would destroy what I am ostensibly defending. He calls her "an enemy of our civilization."I don't believe Hirsi Ali is an "enemy of our civilization." She holds to some positions with which I disagree, but the key difference between her and the Islamic jihadists is that I am confident Hirsi Ali will never try to murder me. We can work out our differences in peace in the public sphere, in rational discourse and debate. It may be that she and I will be in the position of Murray Rothbard and William F. Buckley; Rothbard told Buckley, according to Auster, that although they were allies against Communism, they would be on opposite sides after Communism was defeated. That may be, but at this point I am only concerned with defeating the jihad -- and if that future break with Hirsi Ali or someone else does happen, it will happen within the political arena, and not play out with guns and bombs.

It may be that I will be on opposite sides with many of my present allies if Islamic jihad is defeated and we all survive to work out our disagreements after that. But Auster is picking unnecessary fights with me and with so many other anti-jihadists instead of fighting the mujahedin. In setting himself up as the Grand Inquisitor of the West and its defense, he is actually weakening that defense -- chucking soldiers out of the foxholes instead of letting them fight, at a time when we need every warrior we can get. I have indeed often spoken about the values that the jihadists threaten today without always hammering home that they are Judeo-Christian -- not because I don't know and value that fact, but because they have now become near-universal outside the Islamic world, and we have a chance to build an international Resistance on their basis. I have often said that we need a broad coalition of Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, and more -- everyone threatened by the jihad -- in order to defeat the jihad.

I stand by that statement, because as far as I can tell, no single one of those groups is strong enough to defeat the jihad by itself. And likewise not strong enough to defeat the jihad by itself is the tiny and ever-dwindling number of those whose views are acceptable to a dyspeptic misanthrope like Lawrence Auster.

The Death of Zarqawi: Much Ado, But Accomplishing Little

2006-06-09T12:00:00.000-07:00

In my mind, Islam will forever more be associated with cruelty intolerance, pain and suffering, and the specter of Sha'ria, expansionism, imperialism, world dominance, forced conversion or slavery or death, a Nazi-like existence for Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

The big to do of the capture or death of this Islamist chieftan as that of Zarqawi or the foiling of plots, i.e,. the plan to take over Canada's Parliament and behead the Prime Minister is nothing when put in the context, when considering that these a just two that are getting the most press. The world is full of similar acts and plots being carried out by Muslims. They get press time, hand wringing, joy, jubilation, or sorrow because bombs and blood are involved. They are dangerous but not the most dangerous.

The most dangerous activities by Muslims are quiet conversations on street corners or across the table while breaking breaking bread. They occur in classrooms, lecture halls, churches and mosques. These activities are called indoctrination. Men and women are persuaded to follow the path of Islam and Jihad. Whether they take the path of violence or those that seem peaceful: education, commerce, outreach, journalism, etc., these seemingly normal Muslims are the most dangerous, for their ordinariness they wear down our reserve, erode our sense of wariness and create a false belief that co-existence is possible.

How does indoctrination begin? Here is an example of how young Canadian Muslims were transformed. Young Americans are targeted in their schools and universities and through speaking tours by well-known Muslims; we can see them coming. More dangerous though, will be the one-on-one encounters in dorm rooms and the presence of objecting Muslim students in lecture halls with the presence of thousands of Saudi university students.

Hundreds of scholars and writers have spent their careers explaining and describing this effect, warning how innocuous-seeming Muslims work on our generous spirit and naÏveté, Cassandras all, cursed, scorned and disbelieved, doomed to helplessly watch as their prophecies come true.

Islam marches on. Chieftans come and go. Zarqawi, bin Laden and all the rest are bombadiers and battering rams against Western walls of resistance, they have our attention while speakers, teachers, and university professors and visiting students are the stealthy sappers, laying mines under those same cracked and slowly crumbling walls of Western resistance.

Al Zarqawi was thug and monster, the more extreme product of the Muslim system to be sure,. The do-it-yourself jihadists in Canada are examples of the up-and-coming "Generation Y" jihadists. They represent what always happens when Muslims move in: smiles and talk, then political pressure, bombs, and finally capitulation. This pattern is well on its way on in Europe and, unless we do something quickly and drastically, we also will be drawn into the maw, ground up to disappear forever, another forgotten culture that became distracted and didn't heed the warnings.

Zarqawi: On news channels from the Middle East

2006-06-09T11:22:00.000-07:00

Link is a channel on DirecTV, and it has a program called "Mosaic," which brings snippets of television news broadcasts daily from all over the Middle East. This morning, I got to watch what some of their broadcasters were broadcasting yesterday about Zarqawi. Most reported the death factually, particularly the outlets from Dubai, Iraq, and Lebanon.

Then here came "Keystone Cops television" from Iran. Where else? Talk about your "Yes, but..."

Zarqawi's death will do little to stem violence in Iraq...[Of course, Iran is the main contributor to that violence.]

The violence in Iraq comes from direct sponsorship of Al Qaeda by the USA...[As they show footage from the USSR-Afghani conflict.]

And so it went.

Of all the news outlets cited in this edition of Mosaic, the only newsette who wore the hijab was the woman from Iran.

Mosaic can be a hoot from time to time, and it can be revealing about how folks over there are thinking.

Zarqawi: CENTCOM Lets Us Witness

2006-06-09T09:00:00.000-07:00

We proudly link to CENTCOM, and we periodically receive communiques from Sgt. Gehlen. With the mementous accomplishment of killing the monster Zarqawi, CENTCOM provides the video.

We have posted the footage of the air strike that killed Zarqawi on our site in the Latest Video section. Feel free to use it.

Sgt. Gehlen
U.S. Central Command Public Affairs
www.centcom.mil

And, the announcement from yesterday:

Greetings,

As most of you know, there is some big news out of the CENTCOM area of operations this morning. Here is an excerpt from our press release:

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Gen. George W. Casey Jr., Multi-National Force-Iraq Commanding General, announced the death of al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi in the following statement during a press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad June 8:

“Ladies and Gentlemen, Coalition Forces killed al-Qaida terrorist leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi and one of his key lieutenants, spiritual advisor Sheik Abd-Al-Rahman, yesterday, June 7, at 6:15 p.m. in an air strike against an identified, isolated safe house.

The press release, as well as others, is available on our website www.centcom.mil. Thank you for your time.

Abu Masab al-Zarqawi and the American Left

2006-06-08T20:00:00.000-07:00

The killing of the evil monster in Iraq, al-Zarqawi, made this a newsworthy day, so we listened once again to talk radio while shopping. After the Dubai ports fiasco, we had abandoned most of talk radio because the hosts were insanely supporting George Bush and the give-away-artists of his administration, who were ready to donate our port security to godknowswhat in the cesspool of Dubai.

The listening was fun. Knowing that this monster had been concussed into bloated eyes, lips, face, and a scrambled brain was very exciting to hear and to think about. That some 7 others went with him, all yet unidentified, sweetened the pot. The ecstacy that followed from knowing that 19 other raids followed the intelligence coup from the Zawahiri pureeing was almost too much pleasure to bear.

At this point, enter the Left. Some ditzy woman called Sean Hannity to report that she deplored the taking of any human life for any reason, so we had no reason to celebrate. Other Lefties wanted to do anything to deprive George Bush from receiving any credit. The cherry on the whipped cream, so to speak, came from the father of Nicholas Berg, who was beheaded personnally by al-Zarqawi.

Old Michael Berg, now the Green Party candidate for something in Delaware, said it all. He regretted the death of Zarqawi because he regrets the death of any human being for any reason. To him, Zarqawi's death is simply violence, which begets more violence inevitably. After launching into his standard speech about Bush killing thousands of innocents in Iraq, he then offered that Zarqawi should have received "restorative justice." Restorative justice, according to its advocates, teaches the nefarious to become sorrowful for their crimes and learn never to do them again. By the way, the Vermont judge who became infamous for letting the multiple offense, chronically recurring child rapist off with probation is a True Believer in restorative justice, which is why he let the guy off.

The responses from the Left in Congress and elsewhere over the death of Zarqawi have been tepid and qualified. "Yes, but..."

Well, let's cut to the core and explain the Left. It won't take long because it is very simple. They hate the concept of JUSTICE. They strongly prefer the concept of mercy. Justice concerns meeting out only the EARNED. Mercy concerns meeting out only that which is neither earned nor can be earned. Some Christians are big into this as well.

Meeting out the earned means quite simply conforming to the principles and truths of reality objectively. Nothing pisses off the Left quicker than reference to the objective. They live and require the subjective, where anything can be anything, based on what they want it to be. They are willing to sacrifice some, up to all, of reality to achieve some subjective state of the unearned.

Old Michael Berg will destroy life on earth before he will uphold justice. He will let live the biggest of evil monsters, because he opposes killing any human being for any reason, including the man who personally sawed off the head of his son. Michael Berg, and all his ilk, are not fit to be in human company; they live among other men only because we have a society based on rights. Such a society allows a monster like Michael Berg to exist, provided they do not physically deprive the rights of any other humans.

Michael Berg belongs to the Left, farther out on the left. But, there are Christians on the Right who believe the same things for the same reasons. Not many, thank you, but enough to make noise.

Few people have an objective conception of evil and what it earns. As a result, they keep so much evil thriving. It is a necessity in a free society that people like Michael Berg enjoy the same protection of the same rights as good people. It is an even bigger shame that while we are saving ourselves, we have to save people like him too. Better this than give up our rights and freedoms.

The Canadian Seventeen—In Fact, the Whole Ilk

2006-06-08T17:37:00.000-07:00

Even some of the best thinkers hoist themselves on their own petards about Islam. One very good thinker-writer prefers “Islamic totalitarianism,” and this seems to be the latest in terms. Why are they stumbling over saying “Islam,” instead of some qualified Islam? The correct integration is "Islam," period. All qualifications amount to "Islam Islam."

The reporting and discussion of recent events in Canada have beome hilarious—because of the efforts people made to avoid the Law of Identity.

Why, these seventeen were…just what were they? Except for one, they were "youths.” They were “male,” even “men” or “young men.” Almost a week went by before news and opinion personnel whispered that these seventeen were “Muslims.”

Shades of the reactions in England following the subway bombings, staid Canadians could hardly believe that 15 of the 17 were Canadian—born in Canada and raised in Canada. “Canadians?” Horrors. Such is not supposed to occur. It just isn’t done. And to think how beneficent Canadians have made themselves toward the Muslim hoards flowing into Canada. Here, they were about to allow shari'a in Toronto. A?

The British may still not be able to deal with the fact that the Paki boys were not Paki at all. They were born and raised in England. Like the Canadian homegrown Muslims, they flabbergasted Brits. What could explain all this?

The “deepest” explanation yet being offered about the Canadian 17 is that they are filled with “hate.” How could they come by such hate?

It is all same-old, same-old. It is time to announce that the “emperor has no clothes.”

What unites all Muslims everywhere, regardless of ethnic background, place of birth, or culture is Islam. Not radical Islam. Not extreme Islam. Not perverted Islam. Not hijacked Islam. Not Wahabbi Islam. Not Shiite Islam. Not Sufi Islam. Not Islamic fascism. And, not Islamic totalitarianism.

And absolutely not poverty, alienation, lack of integration, insufficient positive regard, lack of love, etc.

A friend reminded me that as soon as a baby is born into a Muslim family, the father whispers in the baby’s ear about Allah being all great, etc. Before puberty, Muslim kids’ minds ossify—they become Islamists. Few ever escape.

The Islam they learn is the same Islam that has always been, for some 14 centuries. Why do Muslims grow up Islamists, and why are they always the same? It is Islam, stupid! The Islam of today is the same Islam as in 632 A.D.

Muslims grow up awaiting the call of Islam to become activists. That call is going out from every Islamic source all the time.

The answer is not to moderate Islam. It is to reduce the power of Islam and Muslims back to the level of the seventh century so that they cease to pester civilization. Whatever it takes is not too much. That includes purging Islam from the West and any adherents that won’t adapt.

Otherwise, the Canadian 17 are just prologue.

Open Immigration? Si! Open Borders? No!

2006-06-08T17:15:00.000-07:00

[A few contentious objectors over the past couple of months have made us wonder about the source of their objections regarding our stand on immigrants. We thought we had been abundantly clear throughout the context of Sixth Column. We now believe that we have identified the source of their objections--a point of differentiation. To follow is our clarification.]

~~~~~

Regarding immigration, we draw a distinction between "open borders" versus "open immigration." Explaining this distinction (to follow) should clarify any misconceptions about our stand on either issue.

A recent article by Objectivist philosopher Harry Binswanger [“Immigration Quotas vs. Individual Rights: The Moral and Practical Case for Open Immigration,” 2 April 2006] provides an excellent departure point for our clarification. While there are numerous "immigration publications" available, none provides a better presentation that does Dr. Binswanger in his article.

To begin with, Dr. Binswanger uses "open immigration," not "open borders." In his opening paragraph, he states his thesis:

“Entry into the U. S. should ultimately be free for any foreigner, with the exception of criminals, would-be terrorists, and those carrying infectious disease. (And note: I am defending freedom of entry and residency, not the automatic granting of U. S. citizenship)."

He then provides the moral case for open immigration, based on the concept of the Rights of Man, as delineated and clarified by founding philosopher of Objectivism, Ayn Rand. The practical case flows smoothly from the moral and deal with economic, including the value of immigrants to America. He also deals with some of the counter-immigration arguments, namely welfare and overcrowding.

As Objectivists, we agree with the essentials of the Binswanger argument. We have said all along that we fully support legal immigration. We value the concept of legal immigration and the value of immigrants to America. Where on the globe these immigrants originate matters little--given the exclusions of the Binswanger article: criminals, terrorists, and those infected and contagious (infectees). Once legally in America, immigrants must enjoy the same Constitutional protections of their rights, just as indigenous Americans do.

However, we do not support "open borders." Protecting the rights of Americans, expressed as "national sovereignty" and property rights, requires that Americans know, through their government, WHO comes into American, and WHEN, if not HOW, they leave. There is no other way to prevent entry of "criminals, terrorists, and infectees." People flowing into America illegally are BREAKERS OF AMERICAN LAWS. Their status is totally unknown, as are their intentions and whereabouts. "Open borders" is an immoral concept, having severely impractical effects.

Immigrants coming to America legally should not be subject to quotas or be "filtered" in any way. For example, a highly educated writer friend cannot immigrate to America because of the filters of the infamous 1965 immigration law. If émigrés "drain the brains" of other countries, that is not properly any of our federal concern. Just as there should be no governmental welfare for native born Americans, so there should be none for legal immigrants--and certainly none for illegal aliens. There must under no circumstances be penalization of employers who hire legal immigrants--again, this is no business of the government. However, illegal aliens must not have their salaries deductible from employer taxes or receive any other government-provided largess.

All other objections to legal immigration are spurious. By contrast, arguments against illegal aliens are proper.

We are at WAR---with Islam. We must filter out those who would destroy us from inside. Open borders easily leak our destroyers undetected into our country. We have the rights to life and property backing up our rights to control entry.

Open immigration? Si!

Open borders? No!

George Mason, Cubed, and Eleanor

Fjordman is troubled about the failing EU; says it must go. He has no idea.

2006-06-06T03:36:00.000-07:00

The noted Scandinavian blogger, Fjordman, is posted at Gates of Vienna. This time his subject is the unpopular EU that has been instituted by the elites in spite of the objection of many of the ordinary citizens. Fjordman and others believe that it may be on the verge of collapse, an event that will bring about despair, suffering, and instability that could last for at least a generation.

The various articles linked internally back up this assumption. At the bottom of Paul Belian's Brussels's Journal article, "Former Soviet Dissident Warns of EU Dictatorship, can be found two mp3 files: an interview with Vladimir Bukovsky and a speech by the same in which he discusses how the bureaucracy was formed and that it is no accident that the EU, in many ways, resembles the fallen Soviet Union, with input from the Trilateral Commission, and that the EU is headed for dictatorship.

Bukovsky explained that the envisioned purpose of the Soviet Union was to create a new people. We remember from history the the exile program in which who populations were forcibly removed to other parts of the union, the collectives, the five-year plans, the forced multi-culturalism and all the other social experiments that failed badly. That Soviet ended with a whimper while, and according to Bukovsky, the Western-European Soviet rose and is going through painful spasms of multiculturalism through "immigration", a "political" currency, the reallocation of wealth through taxation, an unwieldy bureaucracy, thought and speech control, and all the rest of a different social experiment that Bukovsky believes will also fail.

We can see the same process occurring on North America: multiculturalism through migration, a proposed union that's been in the works for decades but has not been formally announced, with a new economy, a new currency, the "Amero", the mixture of ethnicities and languages, an un-wieldy bureaucracy, eminent domain confiscations of property, and all the rest. The similarities between this union, an "American Soviet", the one in Europe, and the failed Soviet on the eastern part of Eurasia makes one ask a series of questions about the identity of the social engineers, their goals and objectives, and so on.

Social engineering is nothing new. Come-to-think of it, Islam is successful type of social engineering that may trump all other experiments, one that contains all of the elements listed above, the same thought control and repression that rose and died in the Soviet Union and that seems to be on the rise in Europe and in the Americas. It would be ironic if the Islamic repression eventually wins over the others.

I don't know about you, but I resent the social engineers that are playing with our lives and their twisted experiments: why???

Be sure to read Fjordman's essay, that includes several interesting internal links. Listen to the chilling and thought-provoking MP3 links found at the bottom of Belian's interview with Bukovsky. and think about the rising North American Union and all that it will bring.

Focused on Europe, Fjordman, Bukovsky, Belian and all the rest are missing the big picture that doesn't include the Americas. Speaking of the Americas: Is the chest beating in Congress, the movement of the troops to the border, calls to reform immigration, this that and the other, is this all for show to distract us while maneuvering and manipulation are going on behind the scenes. Are our efforts exercises in futility, changing nothing while they set the stage for their grand experiments? I wouldn't be at all surprised.

TRYING TO WORK BOTH SIDES OF THE CONTRADICTION

2006-06-04T12:45:00.000-07:00

CAIR's Daily Whine-o-Email came through with this "news" item. (All emphases mine)

CAIR: MUSLIM CONGRESSIONAL AIDES TAKING STAND - TOP
PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press, 6/2/06
http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-capitol-muslims,0,3212947.story

WASHINGTON -- At midday on Fridays, Muslims gather to pray in a basement room of the U.S. Capitol. Kneeling on sheets they've spread over the floor and facing east toward Mecca, they are members of the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association, about two dozen congressional aides who are part of a small but growing minority in America and in the halls of government.

At first just a prayer group, later a Muslim support group, the association is now looking outward to change what many see as woeful ignorance about Islam on Capitol Hill and beyond, said Jameel Aalim-Johnson, a black Muslim and chief of staff for Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York.

Some 100 non-Muslim congressional colleagues attended an association luncheon and the showing of part of a documentary on Islam in America. Visiting Imams from the Middle East recently met with association members.

The congressional chaplain's office consulted them about offering classes on Islam on Capitol Hill, said association member Nayyera Haq, daughter of Pakistani immigrants and spokeswoman for Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo.

"We're excited and hopeful," Haq said of the group's new mission. "It's nice to be Muslim and feel hopeful about the future."

That's not always easy to do.

Though there's no official count, the association says the number of congressional staffers who identify themselves as Muslim is little more than 20 out of some 10,000 employees at the Capitol complex.

There also is a smattering of Muslims at other Washington agencies, and some departments have consulted American Muslims for help with the counterterror war. Muslims have served as state legislators, but there is no member of Congress who identifies himself as a Muslim, said Corey Saylor, government affairs director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. (MORE)

Here is some more, not put in the CAIR synopsis.

[Commenting on some "anti-Islam" comments made by some legislators, the spokesman] Haq, "You wonder: What am I doing here, working for an institution that insists on viewing me as an outsider?"

In fact, getting Americans to think of Islam as a U.S. rather than foreign religion is a big part of the challenge, said John Voll, a Georgetown University professor of Islamic history and expert on Muslim-Christian relations.

Aalim-Johnson said the majority of the congressional group is Indo-Pakistani, with others whose backgrounds are Turkish, Iranian and African American.

"For a lot of Muslims who are first generation such as myself, when our parents immigrated here, they were working hard at trying to make a better life for their kids," not focused on politics, said Amina Masood, of Pakistani descent and legislative assistant to Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y.

"Now our generation is grown and realizing we are American ... part of this community and we need to be more active," she said. "I'm a staffer, but I'm also a Muslim and I care about Muslim issues ... things that affect us and that we have to take notice of and be a part of it."

If anyone cannot interpret the foregoing into plain, truthful English, then they are either completely and self-inducedly ignorant about Islam--or, they are Bushies.

From the I Want to Scream File: "Men in black terrorise Iraq's women"

2006-06-04T08:46:00.000-07:00

From the "It Makes Me Want to Scream" file:

Is this why we liberated Iraq, to send women back to the Stone Age; to humiliate and strip them of dignity and self-worth and prevent any type of achievement outside of cooking, cleaning, and raising children; to disallow any possibility of choice? All those billions of dollars spent, the loss of in life and limb of brave Americans and brave Iraqis--- for this!!

NOOR and her boyfriend used to go out a lot and listen to dance in their favourite restaurant in Baghdad. The 26-year-old university lecturer also used to enjoy going window shopping at night in the city’s once-glitzy Mansour district, dressed in the latest fashions.

That was before the “men in black”, the Taliban-style militias waging terror against the urban middle class, arrived in Noor’s neighbourhood, threatening to shoot, kidnap and shave the heads of anyone who challenged their draconian strictures.
The militias are part of a hardline religious crackdown organised by Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. On Friday he released a four-hour sermon, effectively a message of hate, calling on Sunni Muslims to confront adherents of the rival Shi’ite branch of Islam.

Zarqawi, who appears to act with impunity in Iraq despite a £13m bounty on his head, has printed pamphlets that were delivered through doors in the Amariya district of Baghdad, one of his self-declared Sunni “emirates”.

The “emir”, identified as Abu Houzeifa, announced new rules: “Women cannot drive; women cannot go out after midday; women and men are not allowed to go out and walk together, they must walk separately.” The rules are enforced by Al-Qaeda thugs who drive around in cars in Amariya, Yarmouk and other Sunni areas that Zarqawi has declared are his. Noor said: “If they see someone breaking the rules, they shoot them.”

The “men in black” have turned women into virtual prisoners in their homes. “At first we were more afraid of bombs but now we are more afraid of being killed for what we are wearing,” Noor said.

Read the rest.

I could scream...and I wouldn't be surprised if they could hear me in Baghdad.

And this is what else is happening in the wonderful world of Islam:

Falafel venders aren't allowed to sell their sandwishes under pain of death because...wait for it..."but they said there were no falafels in Mohammed the prophet's time, so we shouldn't have them either."

It is, however, just one of many Islamic edicts to hit Baghdad in recent weeks, prohibiting everything from the growing of goatee beards to the sale of mayonnaise - because it is allegedly made in Israel.

Even the Arab addiction to cigarettes is being challenged, with insurgents declaring smoking bans in at least one Sunni district.

News of the latest strictures surfaced 10 days ago, when the coach of Iraq's tennis team and two players were shot dead for wearing shorts.

The killings, in Sunni-dominated west Baghdad, took place days after militants had distributed leaflets banning the wearing of shorts or T-shirts with English writing on them. They also forbade women to drive or travel on public transport with men - a rule that bus drivers have begun to enforce.

Another group of traders to have felt the Islamists' unexpected wrath is Baghdad's ice merchants, who sell large chunks of ice for storing food and chilling drinks. In a city facing constant power cuts and summer temperatures of up to 50C (122F), the service they provide is little short of essential.

Yet in recent weeks, they too have fallen foul of the claim that their product was not a feature of life during Mohammed's time.

[...]

Meanwhile, barbers have been inundated with young men anxious to shave off their goatee beards. Last month, Mustapha Jawad, 17, was allegedly killed for wearing one, which Islamists deemed a Jewish facial hairstyle.

Ice, shorts, goatees, falafels, driving, walking as a couple, women driving, women leaving their homes after noon, smoking cigarettes, all of these are now death sentences. Well, smoking cigarettes is already a death sentence, but you know what I mean. At least Western smokers are allowed to make a choice.

Actually, the Talibanization of Iraq is about choice. Islam permits no choice and Iraq's neighbor, Iran has graphically reminded us that we have no choice but allow Islam its way or else. If they are successful in procuring nuclear technology, somehow they will find a way to weaponize what they have to use as a bludgeon to force the expansion of the Ummah all over the world. Those that resist must die.

What would Ahmadinejad's Acquiring the Bomb Really Mean for Us?

2006-06-03T12:22:00.000-07:00

So he gets the bomb. Several countries have the bomb, including India and a Muslim country, Pakistan. Why is the the world going into panic mode because Iran and Ahmadinejad might get the bomb? What is the difference between Pakistan and Iran that is so troubling? The concern is more than the Muslim make up of both countries, the concern is that Ahmadinejad and his cronies are Gnostics.

Most college-educated Americans have heard of Gnosticism and may even have read of Gnosticism in their studies of comparative religions or even in their own church history, but few really know anything about the detrimental effect that acting Gnostics had on European history and consequently on early American colonial history.

European religious wars lasting several centuries were very bloody. To avoid feelings of religious animosity and to build respect, very little more than that is said about them in American schools other than the eventual outcome was the impetus of desire for some European religious separatists to make their way to a new continent where they could be "free". "Free" mean free of and free to.

Free of the kind of religious strife that had plagued Europe for centuries and free to practice their religion as, at that time, there were no nearby competing Christian or Muslim sects. Eventually Americans had no knowledge of the meaning of religious strife and have no context into which they can put the concept of killing and martyrdom in the name of religion save for the vicarious experiences of a few Catholic saints and the misunderstood and infamous specter of the Spanish Inquisition.

Larent Murawiec of the Hudson Organization lays out in graphic detail why Ahmadinejad is so dangerous by linking his beliefs in coming of the Mahdi with those of Christianity's Second Coming of Christ and the past behaviors of Christian Gnostic insurrectionists, believing themselves to be the "Elect", for centuries created religious anarchy requiring a swift and brutal quelling by civil authorities and the Catholic Church. The "troubles" were eventually ended with the deaths and migration of hundreds of thousands or more until the 19th century rise of a similar strain in Islam.

There is no excuse for the cruel, vicious, and un-Christlike behaviors of Christians during between the 11th and 15th centuries. One could only ask: What would have happened if they also had had the bomb?

For five hundred years, from 1100 to 1600, Europe was wracked by Gnostic insurrections, from the Flanders to Northern Italy, from Bohemia to France: Pastoureaux, Taborites, Flagellants, Free Spirits, Anabaptists, etc. The belief-structure just described was theirs. They mobilized hundreds of thousands of people, threatened kingdoms and overthrew dukedoms, they slaughtered Jews, priests and rich people, they created their own, grotesque, bloody, totalitarian 'republics.'

"Soon we shall drink blood for wine," one of the leading insurgent writers stated, "those who do not accept baptism. are to be killed, then they will be baptized in their blood." And another one: "Accursed be the man who withholds his sword from shedding the blood of the enemies of Christ. Every believer must wash his hands in that blood. every priest may lawfully pursue, wound and kill sinners." And "the Just. will not rejoice, seeing vengeance and washing their hands with the blood of sinners." Hear Thomas Müntzer: "curse the unbelievers. don't let them live any longer, the evil-doers who turn away from God. For a godless man has no right to live if he hinders the godly. The sword is necessary to exterminate them. if they resist let them be slaughtered without mercy. the ungodly have no right to live, save what the Elect choose to allow them. Now, go at them. it is time. The scoundrels are as dispirited as dogs.Take no notice of the lamentations of the godless! They will beg you. don't be moved by pity. At them! At them! While the fire is hot! Don't let your sword get cold! Don't let it go lame!"

The same "screed" is being spouted by certain Islamists and the same kinds of savage behaviors are being inflicted as we see nightly on the news. Why? They believe in the righteousness of their beliefs and deeds and that they will bring on the end of the world. For this reason, deterrence has no value.

When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the Mayor of Tehran, he insistently proposed that the main thoroughfares of Tehran should be widened so that, he explained, on the day of his reappearance, the Hidden Imam, Mohamed ibn Hassan, who went into the great occultation in 941 AD could tread spacious avenues. More recently, he told the Indian Foreign Minister that "in two years, everything will be settled," which the visiting dignitary at first mistook to mean that Iran expected to possess nuclear weapons in two years; he was later bemused to learn what Ahmadinejad had meant, to wit, that the Mahdi would appear in two years, at which points all worldly problems would disappear. This attitude, truly, is not new, nor should it surprise us: religious notions and their estranged cousins, ideological representations, determine not only their believers' beliefs but also their believers' actions. Reality, as it were, is invaded by belief, and belief in turn shapes the believer's reality. The difference between the religious and the ideologically religious is this: the religious believer accepts that reality is a given, whereas the fanatic gambles everything on a pseudo-reality of what ought to be. The religious believer accepts reality and works at improving it, the fanatic rejects reality, refuses to pass any compromise with it and tries to destroy it and replace it with his fantasy.

And Ahmadinejad is not alone: The famous Ayatollah Khomeini said: "We have not made a revolution to lower the price of melon," meaning his revolution is apocalyptic and eschatological, one in which the Mahdi, when he reappears, "will be to lead the great and final war which will bring about the extermination of the Unbelievers, the end of Unbelief and the complete dominion of God's writ upon the whole of mankind. The Umma will inflate to absorb the rest of the world."

Nothing will get their way, nothing will deter them, because nothing else exists but that which must be eradicated so that their Order of the world can be fulfilled. Contemporary jihad is not a matter of politics at all (of 'occupation,' of 'grievances,' of colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism and Zionism), but a matter of Gnostic faith. Consequently, attempts at dealing with the problem politically will not even touch it. The jihadis are not "crazy"...they are possessed of a disease of the mind, and the disease political religion of modern Gnosticism in its Islamic version."

Here is a description of their "gnosis" :

The believers - here, the jihadis - are the Elect: they, and only they, know God's plan for the world; they have been chosen by Him to fight and win the final, cosmic battle between God and Satan, and bring about perfection on earth, in this case, the extension of God's writ and dominion, the dar al-Islam, to mankind as a whole. Everybody else is wrong and evil, jahili, and an enemy who can and should be killed at will. Reality, Creation, that is, is irretrievably perverted. The Perfect are "an elite of amoral supermen" (Norman Cohn), who know what reality 'really' ought to be. They are engaged in transforming the world so that it conforms to the 'second reality' that they alone know, thank to their special knowledge, gnôsis. In order to get from A to B, from the evil today to the perfect tomorrow, torrents of blood have to be shed in exterminatory struggle, the blood of all those whose actions or whose very being hinder the accomplishment of the  Mahdi's mission. Owing to their extraordinary status, the Perfects are above all laws and norms. Everything they do is willed and sanctioned by God. Their intent (niyyah) vouches for their acts. They alone are able to determine life and death. The power this ideology confers upon its believers is intoxicating. They love death more than we love life.

We thought the Nazis and Bolsheviks were the embodiment of death, destruction, and evil; they pale in comparison with the possibility of the Islamic Gnostics.

Until I read this essay, I didn't understand their fear or grasp the significane of Islamism, nor could I fathom the old maxim: "More wars and suffering have been inflicted in the name of religion."

Read it all.

When Muslim Inmates Make Up the Rules

2006-06-03T04:12:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows that a prison is for discipline and, possibly, rehabilitation. Because of constraint of salary costs, the ratio of guards to prisoners in most prisons if small, making the prison guard's job more difficult out of fear of violence toward individual guards and full-scale revolt; both occur from time to time. The prison at Guantanamo Bay does not have this constraint; instead problems rise by constraints put on them by the prisoners themselves: the constraint of the condition of Muslims attempting to manipulate a P.C. non-Muslim prison-guard corp that are attempting not to offend ANYONE.

The logical outcome of such an asinine policy culminated around May 17, 2006 with the revolt of the sub-unit at Camp Delta IV made up of "the most compliant prisoners", as differentiated from "cooperative," i.e., prisoners who given information. Compliant prisoners behave well and have "earned" privileges and additional kinds of food and activities. Among other things, the coordinated revolt demonstrated a high degree of planning and that Muslims, even as prisoners, are disdainful of non-Muslims and will always use Islam as a tool and a weapons against them. Even in a prison setting, deference by non-Muslims is always a mistake and could have lethal consequences.

Read the account by Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullo, Ret., at FrontPage.

"Centenarian put off U.S. citizenship for 79 years"

2006-06-02T03:50:00.000-07:00

via: Florida-cracker.org

Although she has lived in the United States since the age of 12, coming in 1927, Mexican-born Maria Soledad Sarabia Lagareta never learned to speak English.

Soledad, as she is fondly called by family members, has been in the United States for 79 years. She was born on Mexico's west coast in Mazatlan, Sinaloa, in 1906. Orphaned at age 12 when her father died in the 1918 influenza pandemic, she moved with her two sisters to Los Angeles to stay with a relative in 1927.

Although both of her sisters became U.S. citizens many years ago, Soledad did not.

"She has always had an allegiance to America. ... It was just never official," said Roland, one of a handful of family members who witnessed the event.

"She wanted to (become a U.S. citizen) for a number of years. It just always never seemed to happen," he said.
[...]

"Her situation allowed us to bypass some of the regulations that were an issue for her in the past," Roland said, noting that her inability to speak English had been a "big issue."

As part of the naturalization process, Soledad had to answer at least six questions about the United States correctly. Roland, who translated for her during the test, said she answered the first six questions correctly without hesitation.

[...]

Soledad worked as a seamstress in Hollywood before moving to Hawaii in 1976 to be closer to her sons, Roland and Bruce, who had moved to the islands seven years earlier. Her husband, Robert, died in the 1960s.

For almost 20 years, Soledad rode the bus to her favorite Mexican grocery stores and cooked lunch for her two sons, Bruce said, adding that she loves to eat and prepare Mexican food.

This sweet-looking elderly lady exemplifies the millions in America who live in language ghettos where English is rarely heard or written. Thus lack even the most basic of English skills. Here are the six questions she could not answer in English.

The Test

These are the six questions that Maria Lagareta was asked to answer correctly to gain U.S. citizenship, according to her son Roland Lagareta who translated the test for her.

1. Who is the current president?
2. Who was the first president?
3. Where is the capital of the United States?
4. Who can vote for U.S. congressmen?
5. What is the minimum age for voting in a federal election?
6. What was the nationality of the first people to land on the moon?

Answers: 1. George W. Bush; 2. George Washington; 3. Washington D.C.; 4. American citizens; 5. 18; 6. American

Troubling. How can someone live in the United States for more than 70 years and still not learn enough English to answer in simple English? The answer is sad and simple: she lived in a language ghetto. Unfortunately because of the rapid influx of immigrants, there can and will be more and more people like Mrs. Lagareta.

Here is the reason why her test was so simple:

English requirements vary depending on age and disability:

Exceptions:  English Requirements  The following persons need not demonstrate an ability to read, write, and speak words in ordinary usage in the English language:

a. A person who, on the date of filing of his or her application for naturalization, is over fifty years of age and has been living in the U.S. for periods totaling at least twenty years subsequent to a lawful admission for permanent residence;

b. A person who, on the date of filing his or her application for naturalization, is over fifty five years of age and has been living in the U.S. for periods totaling at least fifteen years subsequent to lawful permanent residence; or

c. A person who is unable, because of a medically determinable physical or mental impairment or combination of impairments to demonstrate an understanding of the English language.

Exceptions: U.S. History/Civics Requirements
  The requirements of U.S. history/civics do not apply to a person who is unable, because of a medically determinable physical or mental impairment3 to demonstrate an understanding and knowledge of the requirements.

But Mrs. Lagareta did not come to the United States as a person over the age of 50; she was 12 years old, young enough to acquire and become fluent in another language. Her life in Latinized Los Angeles prevented assimilation. Did she make a choice or did her circumstances trap her in a language and cultural ghetto outside of the mainstream?

Mrs. Lagareta was only required to answer five questions that don't demonstrate an applicant's understanding of loyalty to the United States. The normal test of 100 questions is no better. Although they demonstrate some knowledge of the Constitution, how do they demonstrate that the applicant will be a good citizen or that that person understands the meaning of allegiance to the United States?

Perhaps there were few resources available to Mrs. Lagareta when she was young, but today with all the available materials there is no excuse.

"Local Governments Support Illegals"

2006-06-01T20:57:00.000-07:00

We've seen them: day laborers lining up in parking lots, on street corners, and in front of employment offices, in hope of finding employment. Some feel that regulating these groups of illegals is the answer because "they are only illegal because the system is broken."

Among the many items that the Senate's "comprehensive" immigration reform bill, supported by President Bush, failed to address was whether local governments could continue to force taxpayers to subsidize illegal behavior.

That's happening across the United States, and it is a growing trend.

Local governments are building or forcing the construction of hiring centers. These are meeting places for immigrants seeking work and employers seeking cheap labor. Often times these centers help match up skills of a day laborer and what the employer is seeking.

That's despite a seldom enforced federal prohibition that says an employer can be prosecuted for shielding illegal immigrants and for violating federal tax laws.

In 1992 there were five such centers. In 2005 there were 140 nationwide, most supported at least in part by the local governments, according to a study in January by the University of California Los Angeles. Nationally, 84% of the nation's 117,000 day laborers are here illegally, the study said.

The centers sometimes offer job training skills, English as a second language courses and advocacy for immigrants who aren’t being paid. The centers keep a record as to who is hiring the day workers.

But the centers are little more than a government reward to employers that don't provide benefits or pay taxes on cheap labor, said John Vinson, president of the American Immigration Control Foundation in Washington.

"This is government using tax dollars to subsidize lawbreaking," Vinson said. "This situation is occurring more and more around the country. You set these centers up and they become a magnet for illegals. More are coming in. This undercuts the honest contractor who can't compete with the contractor paying workers under the table."

The often-derided House immigration reform bill that passed late last year would have prohibited these centers.

Read the rest.

A congregation of loitering illegal aliens, waiting to break the law again by accepting employment from another group of law-breakers: willing employers. "They are illegal because the system is broken" is not true. They are illegal because they have been encouraged to come by greedy and unscrupulous employers and by government officials from many countries that count on sending their problems abroad and on the billions of remittance dollars generated during their employment at the expense of those that are honestly trying to follow rules and regulations. And to add insult to injury, unknown to them, they are supported and subsidized by the American taxpayer.

Why Does the Government Prevent INS Officers From Doing Their Job?

2006-06-01T19:28:00.000-07:00

"Government Keeping Secrets From Itself--Back by $10,000 Fines"
From: a James Fulford blog entry

Before 9/11, the CIA and the FBI were not allowed to talk to each other; there was a "firewall of confidentiality erected" that prevented the sharing of information. The result of that stupidity was the destruction of the Twin Towers and other acts that could have been thwarted, or at least discovered sooner. Inexplicably, that same mentality lives on in the Immigrations Services, preventing case workers from sharing and finding out vital and pertinent information about applicants.

Ted Kennedy, the man who gave us the 1965 Immigration act, has done it again.

One of Juan Mann's whistleblowers wrote this recently:

There is even a provision to allow affidavits from day labor centers (what's next -- affidavits for tamale vendors and popsicle vendors?) to "prove" employment; fines of up to $10K for immigration officers who dare to use evidence that aliens have committed fraud in immigration applications to disbar them from citizenship.

We weren't sure what section he meant, or if it was in the pubic text of the bill.

However, there's a story in the Washington Times about an interview with the Cuban-born head of the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services Emilio Gonzalez, who said:

On the issue of information sharing and confidentiality of applications, Mr. Gonzalez said the law usually allows his agency to share information when its employees come across an application that raises questions. But he said the 1986 amnesty included confidentiality provisions that prohibited sharing information from those applications, and he said the Senate bill makes the same mistake.

"We ought not to be kept from using that information," he said.

The issue has already been fought out in the Senate, when Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican offered an amendment to change the confidentiality requirements. His amendment failed on a tie vote, 49-49.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat and a key backer of the Senate bill, fought Mr. Cornyn's amendment. He said the underlying bill struck a balance that still allows law enforcement t go after cheaters, while at the same time not discouraging illegal aliens from coming forward. [Immigration agency head slams Senate's alien bill The Washington Times, June 1, 2006]

This is the provision that says that if the aliens commit fraud during the interview, that can't be used against them, and also, what concerns Mr.Gonzalez, that if they let slip, somehow, that they're terrorists, that can't be used against them either.

S. 2611 has the following provision, and this version may include some of the same language tat was removed by Kennedy.

(1) IN GENERAL- Except as otherwise provided in this section, no Federal agency or bureau, nor any officer or employee of such agency or bureau, may -

(A) use the information furnished by the applicant pursuant to an application filed under paragraph (1) or (2) of subsection (a) for any purpose other than to make a determination on the application;

(B) make any publication through which the information furnished by any particular applicant can be identified; or

(C) permit anyone other than the sworn officers and employees of such agency, bureau, or approved entity, as approved by the Secretary of Homeland Security, to examine individual applications that have been filed.

(2) REQUIRED DISCLOSURES - The Secretary of Homeland Security and the Secretary of State shall provide the information furnished pursuant to an application filed under paragraph (1) or (2) of subsection (a), and any other information derived from such furnished information, to a duly recognized law enforcement entity in connection with a criminal investigation or prosecution or a national security investigation or prosecution, in each instance about an individual suspect or group of suspects, when such information is requested in writing by such entity.

(3) CRIMINAL PENALTY - Any person who knowingly uses, publishes, or permits information to be examined in violation of this subsection shall be fined not more than $10,000.

Ted Kennedy was apparently worried that "sharing information would discourage some aliens from coming forward because they would fear making an innocent mistake that would hurt them later."

You can see some of the results of the 1986 amnesty "Red Cover" confidentiality provisions here and here.

UPDATE: Note Remember, Juan Mann wrote that

scandalously, no copy of the final bill is yet available to the public.

So I can't confirm what my correspondent tells me was in the early versions -- and it's quite possible that it will all be law before Americans know anything about it.

(Note: Juan Man is an attorney and the proprietor of DeportAliens.com. and is a columnist for Vdare.com and contributes to Michelle Malkin's Immigration blog)

What a swe-e--e-e-t deal! Wouldn't we all love to have such firewalls thrown up to protect us. Pretty soon no one will be able to find out anything or say anything about anyone....

Wait!! There ARE exceptions! To name the obvious, there are insurance companies that have all our medical records, and Social Security that has our employment and earnings history. Oh, there's the I.R.S., but I don't want to go there. Then, there's F.B.I. that make all those background checks; Credit bureaus that tell banks, lenders, and employers all sorts information about us.

How are these and other agencies allowed to intercommunicate, yet agents in the I.N.S. can't talk among themselves or with other agencies to discover true information about illegals, people that aren't even citizens; people that now have more rights and privileges than citizens...

Why does the government prevent the I.N.S. from doing its job? My guess is as good as yours, but could it be that they really want all those "new citizens" among us so that there can be no homogeneous culture that can itself "American", an erasure of national identity, for there are some that say "American" should not pertain to the United States; "American" means any citizen of the Americas and the use of the term by the United States is presumptuous and bogus. They are in fact, electing a new people to replace...us!

Does that sound right to you????

Trans-Texas Corridor of the North American Union

2006-06-01T05:22:00.000-07:00

Check out this WND report by Jerome Corsi that describes the route for the 12-lane highway that is a part of the North American Union.

The Texas segment of the NAFTA Super Corridor is moving rapidly toward approval. When built, the Trans-Texas Corridor, or TTC, will be a major super-highway with six lanes moving in each direction, twelve lanes across in total, described in the 4,000 page draft environmental study as including separate lanes "for passenger vehicles and large trucks, freight railways, high-speed commuter railways, and a corridor for utilities including water lines, oil and natural gas pipelines, and transmission lines for electricity, broadband and other telecommunications services."

The TTC is expected to follow the current lines of Interstate 35, stretching from Laredo, Texas, on the Mexican border, heading toward Oklahoma City on the Texas border with Oklahoma.

An artist's rendition shows what the projected super-corridor highway is expected to look like.

The idea is to extend the rebuilt I-35 NAFTA super-corridor highway all the way from Laredo, Texas, to Canada, with extensions in Canada to be built out to Montreal in the east and Vancouver in the west. In Mexico, the super-corridor will connect via Mexican railroads with the port at Lazaro Cardenas.

A core design feature is to create a hub in Kansas City. Here the "Lazaro Cardenas – Kansas City Transportation Corridor" will open up a north-south route through the United States to bring in containers from the Far East. As described by Kansas City's Smart Port website:

The Lazaro Cardenas – Kansas City Corridor refers to a trade route linking Kansas City to key Asia-Pacific Markets via a ships-to-rail terminal at the port of Lazaro Cardenas in the State of Michoacan, Mexico. Thanks to an innovative series of international agreements, infrastructure improvements and new technologies, this corridor is a reality.
As the American economy expands and the economies of the Far East ramp up production to meet our demand for goods, the pace of international trade will exceed the ability of major West Coast ports such as Long Beach and Los Angeles to accommodate the flow of goods into the United States.

The NAFTA Super Corridor will be constructed largely by private companies that intend to operate the new I-35 as a toll road. North America's SuperCorridor Coalition Inc., or NASCO, is a "nonprofit organization dedicated to developing the world's first international, integrated and secure, multi-modal transportation system along the International Mid-Continent Trade and Transportation Corridor" Already, NASCO has received $2.5 million in earmarks from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The NAFTA Super Corridor plan is ultimately to reduce the transportation costs of using cheap labor in China, South Korea and Indonesia to produce goods for American markets. Bypassing West Coast ports in the U.S. means bypassing U.S. union wages. Mexican port and rail transport are expected to keep the shipping costs low. Also, allowing free access to the U.S. to Mexican trucks means that the containers can be moved through the U.S. by Mexican nationals, again bypassing Teamster union wages and benefits typically paid U.S. truck drivers.

To get a feel for how transportation planners are influenced by globalist economic thinking, consider this 2005 analysis written by Leonard Krouner in the Voice of San Diego:

The Los Angeles/Long Beach and Seattle/Tacoma harbors are the only two West Coast ports between Alaska and Chile that can be used by super-cargo "post-Panamax" ships with a 4,000 standardized cargo container capacity. The ability to off-load, move, unload, store and distribute cargo from these ships requires expansion of California's transportation infrastructure. Delays increasing costs for cargo movement at the Los Angeles/Long Beach port such as those extant during the 2003 longshoreman labor unrest, and the 2004 arrival of too many ships in a single time period with cargo for distribution prior to the Christmas holidays are motivating mega importers Wal-Mart and Home Depot to invest in warehouse facilities in less expensive states such as Georgia.

None of this would be possible without the extensive work being done by the U.S. Department of Commerce working groups charged with implementing by new regulations the Strategic and Prosperity Partnership of North America, or SPP. The SPP agreement was reached between President Bush, President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin during their March 2005 summit meeting in Waco, Texas. The Bush administration plan is to create a North American Union along the model of the European Union, put in place by administrative regulations and departmental working groups under the SPP umbrella.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is actively working on a Free and Secure Trade program that would create special lanes to allow trucks from Mexico to cross the U.S. border with minimal electronic inspection, reducing the U.S. border with Mexico to no more than a speed-bump for authorized Mexican trucks entering the country.

On June 7, 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Department of Transportation v. Public Citizen ruled in favor of the Bush administration's argument that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration lacked the authority to exercise environmental controls to prevent Mexican trucks from openly operating in the U.S. under NAFTA. This ruling was key in the Bush administration's determination to open U.S. borders to Mexican trucks under the trade agreement. Had the Supreme Court decided otherwise, the NAFTA Super Corridor project would have suffered a setback.

If we could follow the money, I wonder, where it would lead?

"Loving Mexico and Che," NOT Loving the United States, and Other Woes

2006-06-01T05:14:00.000-07:00

Clueless Senators voted "yes" on last week's immigration bill. Apparently neither they nor their staffs pay attention to eyewitness reports of the behaviors of Mexicans toward their own illegal migrants, or to the behaviors of illegal migrants here in the United States that shamelessly take advantage of the largess of America. Are the "clueless Senators" really so clueless?

Legalization is what they want. Legalization doesn't always mean "a path to citizenship". Legalization is a green card that allows one to remain in the United States to work, study, and to receive benefits. Some will pursue the path to citizenship, but most aren't interest in the responsibilities of citizenship, only the benefits of the green card.

Is this what it's all about?:

A reminder: once amnesty is passed, it can never be undone a step toward a North American Union in which all those south of the border would have the right to move up to your neck of the woods. It's unclear whether the laws adverse to migration south, such as those in Mexico, would allow United States citizens freedom to make that, or any choice. This is beginning to sound like the EU boondoggle.

It's interesting to note how we are funding our own demise. Here is an example.

Humberto Fontova gives us a look at the contrast between the treatment of the non-nativeborn, whether illegals or naturalized, in Mexico and the United States. And a shocker: he shows how chummy Mexico is with Communist Cuba. And then there's the "Che factor".

Texas director of homeland security describes how the southern U.S. border is exploited by all types of folks from just about everywhere.

And look at this: The Trans-Texas Corridor," a major super-highway, with six lanes moving in each direction...for passenger vehicles and large trucks, freight railways, high-speed commuter railways, and a corridor for utilities including water lines, oil and natural gas pipelines, and transmission lines for electricity, broadband and other telecommunications services." The highway extends from Mexico City and the Mexican coastline north through Laredo, Oklahoma City, Kansas City, and then it forks off to various points east and West and up into Canada. This does not include the activity at other expanding ports of entry.

Troubling. Do we want THIS for the United States? More troubling is the fact that THEY think we won't notice.... or care, and if we do, we can do nothing about it.

Meanwhile, Daniel Pipes explains how migrants are now being treated in Europe and Africa, a dilemma for Europeans that feel inundated and under siege.

It's the same old story: failed states mired in corruption create a poverty-stricken population that are "permitted" to migrate to "find a better life". The responsibility lies with the corrupt and violent leadership that is allowed, in the name of humanity, to foist their problems and their failures on the rest of the world.

"All politics are local," but "local" problems become something else when the rest of us are expected to clean up the mess. I don't know about you, but I'm ready to make a mess that others will have to clean up. It would be refreshing to see the rest of the world scamper to my aid, to soothe my aches and pains, and my worries; but I won't my hold my breath as history has shown that they would let me die of asphixation before turning a hand to give an American relief.

We Must Make Them Responsive to Us

2006-05-31T17:40:00.000-07:00

Ann Coulter is always fun to read, and it is easy to agree with her most of the time. It is interesting to see how she has given up on Righteous George Bush, and for the correct reasons.

She has just come out with piece about the Senate's "immigration reform" bill, which Bush loves.

Well, let her tell some of it here (follow the link to get the whole article):

Se puede get 2 years tax-free!

By Ann Coulter

If Congress adopts the Bush plan and gives amnesty to illegal aliens, Senate Republicans will be asking President Cheney for a pardon.

Bush wants to grant illegal aliens amnesty while sounding like he's really cracking down on them...

The "path to citizenship" that Bush and the Senate are trying to pawn off on Americans requires that illegals pay huge fines and back taxes...defined as a $2,000 fine and taxes for three of the last five years.

[T]hey also will have a panoply of government benefits available to them if they become citizens – in fact, even if they get green cards...

Inasmuch as most of these low-skilled immigrant workers are in the 0 percent tax bracket, this should be a real boon for the U.S. Treasury...

The Senate bill also forgives illegal aliens who have committed identity theft by stealing American Social Security numbers to get jobs...

[I]n addition to the Two Years Tax-Free plan for illegals, they get one free felony.

Also, illegal immigrants from Mexico qualify for affirmative action, allowing them to get into U.S. colleges with lower grades and scores than Americans.

Given this listing of Senate benefits to ILLEGALS (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), paid for BY YOU, there are benefits for a whole lot of others. Continues Ann:

However hardworking illegal immigrants are when they come here, the moment they become citizens, they will be immediately demagogued by Democrats into viewing welfare as a universal human right, just as they now view living in America...

The list goes on. Benefits to some, but not us citizens--we simply get stuck with the bill.

Her single best comment is this:

Instead of creating a separate class of citizens who are immune from oppressive government rules, how about relieving all of us – even us shiftless Americans – from the cost of government?

(There is much more in the full article. )

We have a president and a senate that have become refractory to us. They have forgotten that they work for us. In their forgetfulness, they are working agendas instead of working to preserve and protect the rights of LEGAL CITIZENS (pardon the redundancy). Bush is carrying the senators' water for them, so they need not rein him in. All of them are giving us the middle finger.

One third of the Senate and all of the House come up for election this November. We all need to be aware of how and why our so-called representatives have been behaving. Most need to be fired from the ballot box in November. To judge this, examine what they do

Note that that will get rid of all but about 4 Democrats and 50% of the Republicans in the Senate--and give us a vast sea of new faces in the House. That will start getting their attention.

Ummah News Links

2006-05-30T11:57:00.000-07:00

Worth keeping tabs on this one.

Via: The American Thinker

A Novel Approach to the Border Problem: Keeping Mexicans at Home Would Be Good for Mexico.

2006-05-30T11:33:00.000-07:00

Is the tide finally turning in Mexico?

Some Mexicans publicly are admitting that emigration, for Mexico, has been a disaster. Mexican elites have not lived up to the responsibilities for their country and countrymen that come with power and position. Rather they have taken the easy way out by sending their problems across the border. A fence would stop all that.

Some interesting facts about Fox and Mexico

1) President Fox makes $236,693 a year, more than the leaders of France, the United Kingdom, and Canada; Mexican congressional deputies, who serve only a few months year, take home at least $148,000 a year, plus $28,000 "leaving office bonus" at the end of term.

2) Taxes collected are equivalent to 9.7% of GDP, a figure on par with Haiti; there is painfully little to spend on education and health care, which means there is no social mobility and little job opportunity.

Mexico is a country rich in resources and hard-working people. Obviously the leadership-class is holdingt hem back:

In short, Mexico is so corrupt, so oligopolistic, so rotting inside with the privilege of the rich that it has to send its poor and its potential political activists to another country. And on top of that, it tries to blame the United States for its own failures...

When I was in Mexico last fall, after dozens of visits over the years, people on every political and social level confirmed these accusations, complaining to me of Fox's failures. Forty families still own 60 percent of Mexico. There are no voluntary organizations, no civic involvement, no family foundations – and thus, no accountability, allowing corruption to flourish. Mexico gains $28 billion from oil revenue and $20 billion from immigrant remittances. There is virtually no industrialization, no small business, no real chance at individual entrepreneurship. Under Fox, it has created only one-tenth of the 1 million jobs needed.

Using Orwellian newspeak, Mexican politicians publicly pronounced the migration to the North a boon for Mexico. The emigrants were "national heroes", the jobs and remittance money, "Mexico's due for territorial loss at the Treaty of Hidalgo," American displays of sovereignty and border control are nothing more than "adding insult to injury, preventing re-unification of families", and so on.

Now, other "prominent Mexicans are quoted as saying that the wall would be the

“best thing that could happen for Mexico”; the “porous border” allowed “elected officials to avoid creating jobs.” And former Foreign Minister Jorge G. Castañeda, who always took a tough line toward the United States, writes in the Mexican newspaper Reforma that Mexico needed “a series of incentives” to keep Mexicans from migrating, including welfare benefits to mothers whose husbands remained in Mexico, scholarships, and the loss of land rights for people who were absent too long from their property.

Finally, a revolution in thinking! Too long has everything been blamed on the gringo, and too long have gringos been expected to pay up for Mexico's failures.

Two important points here. The fact that the free enterprise candidate for July's presidential election, Felipe Calderon of the National Action Party (PAN), is suddenly and unexpectedly surging ahead on his slogan of “My job will be to make sure you have a job” may show that the Mexican people are fed up. In addition, the fact that only 50,000 of the 400,000 Mexicans in the United States who were available to vote in the July Mexican elections have bothered to register can only indicate a generalized disgust with Mexican corruption and hopelessness, and perhaps even a turn toward American ways.

Don't count your chickens just yet: Mexican politics are notoriously deceptive, and elements in the elite will fight to hold on to their advantages and low-rate of taxation.

Mainstream-America has now awakened to the "insult of its 'neighbor' cynically exporting its problems, while doing nada at home." (After all they didn't have to while they could count on the American tax payer and the American government to take care of their problems and do the work for them.)

The immigration debate, the posting of the guard, the raising of standards, threats to seal the border and deportation of the undocumented, and all the rest has jarred Mexicans into the realization of how foolish, corrupt, and incompetent they appear to the rest of the world, as their exports are oil, human beings, crime, and drugs:

"Ironically, the debate and the anger in the U.S. about this mammoth illegal immigration ha already helped Mexico to begin to shed its dependency on America -- and to turn its energies toward its own real predators, all home-grown."

Not so fast. True, Mexico has a mammoth task ahead, for reform, cleaning up and cleaning out the corruption and criminal elements, a daunting task for anyone, but the role of corrupt politicians and employers can't be overlooked. Mexico only took advantage of the United States because they were allowed to do so. The United States must do its own soul search, its own cleaning and cleaning, and a suitable job of immigration reform is in order. The predators and villains are "home-grown" on both sides of the border,

Great News! Get on the list for Ali Sina's new book

2006-05-30T08:40:00.000-07:00

From Robert Spencer on Jihad Watch, May 29, 2006

Ali Sina's book, Understanding Islam and the Muslim Mind

The courageous and insightful Ali Sina has written a book, and he needs people to show interest in buying it in order to encourage his publisher. Please take a look here and support Ali by signing up.

And here are some of the endorsements the book has received (there are more here):

The book is prefaced by the celebrated scholar [and Jihad Watch Board member] Ibn Warraq.
[...]

1- A blisteringly honest, thoroughly documented, and piercingly insightful investigation of the root causes within Islam of the fanaticism and violence that today threatens the entire world. Should be required reading at the State Department and the White House. -- Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades (Regnery)

2- A powerful, no holds barred look at an ideology of hate and what must be done to eradicate it. This book pulls no punches. A must read for anyone seeking to understand Islamist terrorism" Professor Kim Ezra Shienbaum, Ph.D Dept. of Political Science, Rutgers University Camden, NJ. Chief Editor of Beyond Jihad.

3- With great courage, perspicacity, and trenchant wit, Ali Sina demolishes a host of politically correct myths about Islam, and its founder. One wishes policymaking elites would avail themselves of his insights which shatter the dangerous delusions of their own invented Islam. Andrew G. Bostom, MD, author of The Legacy of Jihad

[...]
9- The war against jihad can and must be won, in spite of the Western elite class that is instinctively prone to appeasement and betrayal. The first task is to analyze frankly the identity and character of the enemy and the nature of the threat. It is essential to discard the taboos and to discuss Islam without fear or guilt, or the shackles of mandated thinking. Ali Sina's new book makes an important contribution to that objective.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles,” says Sun Tzu. Thanks to this book we know the jihadist enemy a little better -- his core beliefs, his role models, his track-record, his mindset, his modus operandi, and his intentions. We also know his weaknesses, which are many, above all his inability to develop a prosperous economy or a functional, harmonious and good society.

The main problem remains with ourselves, however, with those among us who have the power to make policy and shape opinions, and who will reject and condemn Ali Sina's diagnosis. Our own elite class treats the jihadist mindset as a pathology that can and should be treated by treating causes external to Islam itself. The result is a plethora of proposed multiculturalist “cures” that are as likely to succeed in making us safe from terrorism as snake oil is likely to cure leukemia. Dr. S. Trifkovic, Foreign Affairs Editor CHRONICLES

He's At It Again, Ma!

2006-05-30T08:28:00.000-07:00

Happily, more and more commentary about the president of Iran compares him to Adolf Hitler, and extends that comparison to Iran as a Nazi state reincarnate. Both are completely accurate, usually far more accurate than most people appreciate. Der Spiegel has just released their interview of Adolfinejad, and here are a few tidbits.

SPIEGEL ONLINE - May 30, 2006, 12:01 AM
SPIEGEL Interview with Iran's President Ahmadinejad: "We Are Determined"

In an interview with SPIEGEL, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad discusses the Holocaust, the future of the state of Israel, mistakes made by the United States in Iraq and Tehran's nuclear dispute with the West.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: "By siding with Iran, the Europeans would serve their own and our interests."

SPIEGEL: First you make your remarks about the Holocaust. Then comes the news that you may travel to Germany -- this causes an uproar. So you were surprised after all?
Ahmadinejad: No, not at all, because the network of Zionism is very active around the world, in Europe too. So I wasn't surprised. We were addressing the German people. We have nothing to do with Zionists... We are posing two very clear questions. The first is: Did the Holocaust actually take place? You answer this question in the affirmative. So, the second question is: Whose fault was it? The answer to that has to be found in Europe and not in Palestine. It is perfectly clear: If the Holocaust took place in Europe, one also has to find the answer to it in Europe. On the other hand, if the Holocaust didn't take place, why then did this regime of occupation...We don't want to confirm or deny the Holocaust. We oppose every type of crime against any people. But we want to know whether this crime actually took place or not. If it did, then those who bear the responsibility for it have to be punished, and not the Palestinians. Why isn't research into a deed that occurred 60 years ago permitted? After all, other historical occurrences, some of which lie several thousand years in the past, are open to research, and even the governments support this.

SPIEGEL: The key question is: Do you want nuclear weapons for your country?
Ahmadinejad: Allow me to encourage a discussion on the following question: How long do you think the world can be governed by the rhetoric of a handful of Western powers? Whenever they hold something against someone, they start spreading propaganda and lies, defamation and blackmail. How much longer can that go on?

SPIEGEL: We're here to find out the truth. The head of state of a neighboring country, for example, told SPIEGEL: "They are very keen on building the bomb." Is that true?
Ahmadinejad: You see, we conduct our discussions with you and the European governments on an entirely different, higher level...

Interview conducted by Stefan Aust, Gerhard Spörl and Dieter Bednarz in Tehran.

This is a sampling of how this man thinks, and understanding how he thinks is essential to our survival. He carefully clothes emotion in the language of logic, to suck in the unsuspecting. Read the entire interview to get the full impact-- as well as a companion article An Apocalyptic Religious Zealot Takes on the World.

MEMORIAL DAY: What We Owe Our Soldiers

2006-05-30T00:01:00.000-07:00

To follow is an op-ed piece by Alex Epstein of the Ayn Rand Institute.

Mr. Epstein puts the meaning of our fighting men and women into context and perspective. Anyone understanding this piece will get an eye-opening about the contradictory and lousy ideas that motivate the men and women of government to send our troops to slaughter. George W. Bush is a classic in that regard, and the maiming and killing of our military personnel as well as the treasure being spilled along with their blood reflect the prevalence of this foul thinking.

George W. Bush is hardly alone. Since Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement, American leaders have been sending the flower of our youth and our treasure off to be sacrificed, including to police a world that has come to rely on American sacrifices to save their unhygienic behinds. The blame falls equally on the Right, the Left, and those marshmallows who call themselves "moderates."

If these fine young people of our military did not believe they were going in harm's way in service to the home of the rights of man, they would not go. But, they are being sent by their lessers to be sacrificial fodder, even cannon fodder, for what Lyndon Johnson called "championing lost causes." If America is to get well, we must stop the sacrifice and stop championing causes not worth our time and effort.

What We Owe Our Soldiers

By Alex Epstein

Every Memorial Day, we pay tribute to the American men and women who have died in combat. With speeches and solemn ceremonies, we recognize their courage and valor. But one fact goes unacknowledged in our Memorial Day tributes: all too many of our soldiers have died unnecessarily--because they were sent to fight for a purpose other than America's freedom.

The proper purpose of a government is to protect its citizens' lives and freedom against the initiation of force by criminals at home and aggressors abroad. The American government has a sacred responsibility to recognize the individual value of every one of its citizens' lives, and thus to do everything possible to protect the rights of each to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. This absolutely includes our soldiers.

Soldiers are not sacrificial objects; they are full-fledged Americans with the same moral right as the rest of us to the pursuit of their own goals, their own dreams, their own happiness. Rational soldiers enjoy much of the work of military service, take pride in their ability to do it superlatively, and gain profound satisfaction in protecting the freedom of every American, including their own freedom.

Soldiers know that in entering the military, they are risking their lives in the event of war. But this risk is not, as it is often described, a "sacrifice" for a "higher cause." When there is a true threat to America, it is a threat to all of our lives and loved ones, soldiers included. Many become soldiers for precisely this reason; it was, for instance, the realization of the threat of Islamic terrorism after September 11--when 3,000 innocent Americans were slaughtered in cold blood on a random Tuesday morning--that prompted so many to join the military.

For an American soldier, to fight for freedom is not to fight for a "higher cause," separate from or superior to his own life--it is to fight for his own life and happiness. He is willing to risk his life in time of war because he is unwilling to live as anything other than a free man. He does not want or expect to die, but he would rather die than live in slavery or perpetual fear. His attitude is epitomized by the words of John Stark, New Hampshire’s most famous soldier in the Revolutionary War: "Live free or die."

What we owe these men who fight so bravely for their and our freedom is to send them to war only when that freedom is truly threatened, and to make every effort to protect their lives during war--by providing them with the most advantageous weapons, training, strategy, and tactics possible.

Shamefully, America has repeatedly failed to meet this obligation. It has repeatedly placed soldiers in harm's way when no threat to America existed--e.g., to quell tribal conflicts in Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. America entered World War I, in which 115,000 soldiers died, with no clear self-defense purpose but rather on the vague, self-sacrificial grounds that "The world must be made safe for democracy." America's involvement in Vietnam, in which 56,000 Americans died in a fiasco that American officials openly declared a "no-win" war, was justified primarily in the name of service to the South Vietnamese. And the current war in Iraq--which could have had a valid purpose as a first step in ousting the terrorist-sponsoring, anti-American regimes of the Middle East--is responsible for thousands of unnecessary American deaths in pursuit of the sacrificial goal of "civilizing" Iraq by enabling Iraqis to select any government they wish, no matter how anti-American.

In addition to being sent on ill-conceived, "humanitarian" missions, our soldiers have been compromised with crippling rules of engagement that place the lives of civilians in enemy territory above their own. In Afghanistan we refused to bomb many top leaders out of their hideouts for fear of civilian casualties; these men continue to kill American soldiers. In Iraq, our hamstrung soldiers are not allowed to smash a militarily puny insurgency--and instead must suffer an endless series of deaths by an undefeated enemy.

To send soldiers into war without a clear self-defense purpose, and without providing them every possible protection, is a betrayal of their valor and a violation of their rights.

This Memorial Day, we must call for a stop to the sacrifice of our soldiers and condemn all those who demand it. It is only by doing so that we can truly honor not only our dead, but also our living: American soldiers who have the courage to defend their freedom and ours.

Alex Epstein is a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, CA. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand--author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead."

The Ayn Rand Institute, 2121 Alton Pkwy, Ste 250, Irvine, CA 92606

Flag Etiquette

2006-05-29T19:45:00.000-07:00

Today, we display with great pride an American flag we have displayed on every appropriate holiday since 9/11. It is beginning to show its age, but it is in good condition, and we pamper it between holidays.

We have many occasions during the year when it is appropriate to display our flag. Since this, Memorial Day, is one of them, and since others such as the 4th of July are not far off, I thought this might be a good time to refer people to a couple of good sites where they can refresh their knowledge of "flag etiquette."

Quite a few of the points of etiquette are governed by federal law in the "Flag Code."

When I was a kid, every school had a flag-raising ceremony at the beginning of the school day. We all stood at attention while the flag was raised, and then we went inside and recited the Pledge of Allegiance with our right hands over our hearts, while facing a flag displayed on the classroom wall. That was in the pre-Eisenhower days, before the controversial introduction of the phrase "under God," so there was no question whatsoever about whether it was appropriate to recite it on government property, and we were all proud to participate.

We also had lessons in "flag etiquette," both in school and for those of us who were members of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, at our weekly meetings with them.

Today, many school children know little about flag etiquette unless someone has taken the time to teach them. Here are a couple of good sites (there are many) about "flag etiquette" that are helpful: USA Flag Site, and Betsy Ross. The "Betsy Ross" site has good illustrations, as well has historic photographs of violations of etiquette. Even President Bush is shown committing a violation!

The Roots of Evil - Book Review

2006-05-29T15:26:00.000-07:00

Does evil exist? How is it defined and how can we recognize evil when we see it?

...The word “evil” seems out of fashion these days (except perhaps to describe George W. Bush). Even Islamic terrorists busily blowing up innocent children and mothers tend to get a verbal pass.

The moral and political philosopher John Kekes rejects this thought-killing nonjudgmentalism. Evil exists, he says, and philosophy has the job of explaining it. And that is what his serious and humane new book, The Roots of Evil, sets out to do.

From the outset, Kekes sets himself against most Enlightenment and religious accounts of evil. Enlightenment thinkers tended to view human nature as intrinsically good, while evil was a product of a flawed social order: Fix society and evil will vanish. Kekes, by contrast, sees evil as ineradicable, though he believes we can ameliorate its worst effects. Similarly, Kekes (a nonbeliever) claims, religious theories that posit the goodness of creation run aground: The “very existence of evil . . . constitutes a reason against believing in a morally good order.”

ACTIONS ARE EVIL, he asserts, if they combine three basic features: the “malevolent motivation” of actors, the “serious excessive harm caused by their actions,” and the lack of a “morally acceptable excuse for their actions.” On these terms, Allen’s actions were unambiguously evil: He self-consciously chose to hurt people for his own enjoyment. One must be realistic about human nature: Human beings are capable of magnanimity and mercy; they can also be stone-cold killers.
In Kekes’ view, Allen’s thuggery exemplifies the evil that can result from “disenchantment with ordinary life.” Boredom is an underappreciated source of wickedness. But there are many others, Kekes says, and he explores five more. A particularly lethal one—on a much larger scale—is utopian politics. Kekes devotes a fascinating chapter, “Perilous Dreams,” to Robespierre and the Jacobins, whose fanaticism anticipated twentieth-century totalitarianism. Kekes unsparingly details the atrocities of Robespierre’s two-year reign—women raped, children killed or mutilated, prisoners disemboweled before howling mobs.

What licensed the brutality was the Jacobins’ ideological approach to politics. Robespierre and his followers, like left-wing revolutionaries since, divided the political world in absolute terms. “All political choices of the time were interpreted as choices between morality and immorality, good and evil, virtue and vice,” writes Kekes.

“The choices Robespierre favored were of course on the side of the angels, so his opponents could be demonized.” Illustrating this chilling logic, Kekes offers the words of St-Just, Robespierre’s close ally: “The republic consists in the extermination of everything that opposes it.”

But is it right to call Robespierre evil, his apologists ask? Wasn’t he seeking a better, fairer society? Kekes will have none of it. “Robespierre had people lynched, buried alive, hacked to pieces, slowly drowned, publicly humiliated, and parts of their still-warm bodies devoured by the mob,” he observes. Whatever justification one might offer “cannot even begin to account for the savage, inhuman cruelty and ferocious malevolence” of his actions. Even if it were necessary to kill his victims—not that it was, of course—the wild excess of the harm he and the Jacobins inflicted reveals the moral truth. The same kind of excesses characterized the actions of Kekes’ other evildoers.

Consider the “dirty warriors” of Argentina’s military junta during the late 1970s. Committed to national and military “honor”—a concept that when perverted becomes a third source of potential evil, Kekes believes—they used kidnapping, gruesome torture, and murder to eradicate subversives (dropping bound victims out of airplanes to drown in the ocean was a preferred method of killing). The junta defined subversion so loosely that anyone who disagreed with the dirty warriors’ vision of politics became a potential victim.

Here, too, politics became a battleground between good and evil, making “toleration, compromise, and moderation impossible.” And religious faith can encourage evil, too, as we are reminded daily in our struggle with Islamist terror. Kekes’ example of religiously inspired atrocities is the thirteenth-century Catholic Church’s crusade against the Cathars, which wiped them out—along with many who had little or nothing to do with them.

Read it all.

Thomas Jefferson On The Problem of Rapid and Excessive Immigration

2006-05-28T18:02:00.000-07:00

Thomas Jefferson, a primary author of the Declaration of Independence, a Framer of the Constitution, and our third president, was very generous on the issue of immigration, but he also cautioned us about the problems that resulted from too much, too fast:

"[Is] rapid population [growth] by as great importations of foreigners as possible... founded in good policy?... They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty. These principles, with their language, they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their number, they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass... If they come of themselves, they are entitled to all the rights of citizenship: but I doubt the expediency of inviting them by extraordinary encouragements."

Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.VIII, 1782. ME 2:118

"Immigration debate impacts Mexican race"

2006-05-28T10:21:00.000-07:00

If you could vote in Mexico, whom you choose? The question is fair as Mexico's dual-citizenship franchise law allows expatriates that have attained citizenship in another country to vote in Mexican elections as well, thus assuring that they will maintain interest and ties to "the mother country".

Candidates

1) Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, "a fiery lefist, has accused Fox of being weak when dealing with Washington, calling Fox a U.S. 'puppet' and 'lackey' for not vigorously opposing the move of the U.S. National Guard to the border.

"Lopez Obrador is using Fox as a patsy for Calderon. He has found it easier to run against Fox than Calderon because Calderon is slippery and difficult to get to," political analyst Federico Estevez said."

Lopez Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor who has headed demonstrations against state and federal governments, would likely work more closely with migrant protesters, [George] Grayson, an expert on Mexico said.

"I could see Lopez Obrador flying into the United States and joining demonstrations to put the pressure on," he said. "He believes in direct action. Look at his past. He has always mobilized people to achieve his political aims."

"Lopez Obrador has been stumping in these [poor] villages and is gaining substantial support there, pollsters say. He kicked off his campaign in the impoverished hamlet of Metlatonoc on the day it held a funeral for a former resident hit by a car in Alabama.

2) Felipe Calderon, a member of the ruling National Action Party.

Harvard educated, "Calderon, a career politician and son of a National Action Party founder, staked out his own nationalist credentials on the immigration issue, attacking the U.S. Senate for approving 370 miles of triple-layer border fencing."

"These measures increase the social and human costs for migrants and only benefit criminal groups," he said.
Calderon "would probably continue Fox's strategy of lobbying U.S. senators and holding get-togethers with the U.S. President, said George Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William and Mary."

3) Roberto Madrazo "of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which ruled Mexico for 71 years until Fox's historic victory in 2000, is also hitting the immigration issue hard with peasant farmers, a key base for the party.

Madrazo began his campaign with a rally in the central Mexico farming town of Izucar de Matamoros, flanked by a migrant activist from New York and a young Indian woman whose brothers work in the United States.

Madrazo claims migration has increased under Fox because the president has abandoned the countryside."

"Whoever wins, the migration policy of Mexico's next administration will probably vary more in style than substance.
With migrants sending home nearly $20 billion a year and reducing the pressure for job-creation in Mexico, it is likely that any president will go on pushing for Mexicans to work legally in the United States....

But their tactics may differ."

For whom would I vote IF I had the Mexican franchise? It's hard to tell as all three candidates tie everything to migration which was in full swing long before Fox was elected. But rather than expecting to bailed out by the United States or using the United States as a "safety valve," Roberto Madrazo was the only one that offered hope in Mexico:

"The solution to the migration problem is in Mexico, not the United States," he told the Associated Press in a recent interview. "We are the ones who have to create more jobs in the countryside."

Based on this report, I would choose Madrazo. However, his political party, the one that had been in power for 71 years is known to be very corrupt and elitist, and can his party be trusted to uphold that sentiment? The choice would be very difficult, the least of the three evils: a manipulator of U.S. policy, a Marxist, and an elitist . Whom would you choose?

"Memories of 1918 flu pandemic haunt 21st century"

2006-05-28T09:25:00.000-07:00

In earlier times, flu and other infectious diseases routinely killed whole families. Toni Reinhold's story of grandmother struck a note as my own grandmother, a product of her widowed mother's second marriage, born at the end of the 19th century, told me of an epidemic of "Scarlet Fever" that eliminated her mother's first family and husband during the last quarter of the 19th century. No one can know for sure what killed my grandmother's family as infections were categorized by symptoms and identification of viruses and most bacteria was still not possible. A personal tragedy that paled when compared to effect of the 1918 'Spanish Flu' pandemic.

(Photo: Antonia Starece, author's grandmother and her children)

Toni tells of her grandmother's tale of fear and pain of loss that was multiplied millions of times over worldwide:

My grandmother lived through the Great War, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, World War Two, the cultural revolution of the '60s and three decades beyond.

There was little that could threaten her nerve but until the day she died, Marie Starace was afraid of two things. One was lightning. The other was "The Grip" -- the deadly flu that wreaked havoc on the Brooklyn, New York, neighborhood where she was born and raised.

So vivid were her memories of the influenza pandemic of 1918-19 that whenever she saw us with open coats and throats exposed to the cold, she would gravely warn: "Button up or you'll get the grip." When I was a teenager -- about 50 years after the horrible episode -- I had the sense to ask what this dreaded "grip" was.

"It was a terrible thing. So many people died from the grip when I was a little girl that it seemed like every family lost someone," my grandmother told me.

"It was heartbreaking to see mothers crying for their children. Some of them lost two and three children. I'll never forget one woman crying in my mother's arms because she lost her children and her husband."

"People didn't want to say when someone in their house was sick because the place would be quarantined and no one could get out to work," Granna recalled.

"Some people went out in the middle of the night to get the undertaker because they didn't want it to get around that someone in their house had died from the flu. They were afraid of being reported to the Health Department and quarantined."

'SPANISH FLU'

The flu that killed an estimated 20 million to 100 million people worldwide was known in the United States as the Spanish flu or "La Grippe" because it ravaged Spain early on.

Studies show that it was caused by an avian flu virus -- the H1N1 strain -- that could be passed from human to human. The fear today is that the current H5N1 strain of bird flu could mutate and do the same.

In 1918, word of the illness in Europe was carried to Brooklyn's shores by troops returning from the battlefields of World War One and seamen who helped breathe life into New York City's ports. It was suspected that some of them carried the flu as well.

Read the rest.

The author's grandmother advised her to "Button up or you'll get The Grip". My grandmother's homespun wisdom was: "Eat or you'll get sick". They did the best they could, treating the symptoms with potions, plasters, quarantine, and chicken soup. They didn't understand why sickness came, but they did what the had to do, and it's amazing that any survived.

Although modern medicine can never totally eliminate the flu, we are fortunate to live in era where containment is possible with measures of prevention and a lot of luck.

Get ready, the flu is coming. Apparently it has mutated to a more efficient strain

Bird Flu News Coverage

"In Reality, It Will Give the Illegals More Rights Than the Average American Citizens."

2006-05-28T06:04:00.000-07:00

The "problem with immigration" has little to do with foreign trade or even the line drawn in the sand called the border. The problem has to do imposition, the foisting on Americans of laws and regulations...and people. Laws and regulations that we have not approved and too many people, people that apparently are to be given more rights and benefits than are we.

How Much Would You Pay?

If this doesn't make you blood boil, nothing will.

"Nurses Under Attack"

2006-05-28T05:48:00.000-07:00

"Rising Wages for Nurses? Nanny State to the Rescue.

The article reports on a provision in the Senate immigration bill that removes the cap on the number of nurses who can enter the country each year. The problem, as described in the article, is that the country faces a large and growing shortage of nurses. In a market economy, a shortage means that wages should rise. This will cause more students to enter nursing schools (presumably creating more incentive to establish nursing schools), and will induce many part-time or retired nurses to work more hours as nurses. It may also curtail the demand somewhat, as some tasks that are performed by nurses can presumably be performed by less-skilled workers.

But, that is not the way things work in the world of the conservative nanny state. The people who set economic policy in this country don’t want to pay nurses higher wages. They have a different solution - bring more nurses from developing countries into the United States. These nurses will be very happy to work for the current wages received by nurses in the United States, which are far higher than what nurses in places like the Philippines or India earn. (Never mind the impact that this drain of nurses has on developing countries.)

Before anyone claims that free immigration is part of a free market, it is important to remember that the United States does not have free immigration in general, it only allows free immigration in occupations where it is trying to depress wages.

"Here's a Job Americans Would Do

Outsourcing is killing plenty of American jobs. But nursing is a good job that can’t be outsourced, because the patients are here. Hey, no problem. We’ll just in-source foreign workers.
Kuttner ideas on how to increase wages and improve distribution of wealth via taxation are a bit dated in my opinion-but at least he’s trying.

The US of Guest Worker Visas to attack Software Engineers went smoothly for the plutocrats because software engineers were not an organized profession-and had nothing in the way of things like licensing boards as a tool to use in their defense. Nurses are largely unionized. Many nurses have seen first hand what Guest Worker Visas have done to family members in the software profession. If the union leadership of Nurses can’t stand up to this kind of assault, I suspect we’ll see a rapid reaction in this area.

Why is this happening?

The key to the story is that our political leaders think that free trade and competition are good only for manufacturing workers, nurses, and other workers lower down the social ladder. They want the nanny state to protect the highest-paid workers from international competition. The huge gap in wages between those at the top and those at the bottom is not because of the market, it ís because those at the top got Congress to rig the game.

Disillusionment has set in: I'm getting this feeling more and more often.

"Imposition of Shariah on non-Muslims Proposed in Aceh"

2006-05-28T05:30:00.000-07:00

The Indonesian province that took the brunt of the Indian Ocean Tsunami is about to suffer cultural devastation as Muslims are riding roughshod over non-Muslims:

A bill proposed by lawmakers in the Indonesian province of Aceh would impose Shariah law on all non-Muslims, the armed forces and law enforcement officers, a local police official has announced.
  The news comes two months after the Deutsche Presse-Agentur warned of “Taliban-style Islamic police terrorizing Indonesia's Aceh”.
  Shariah took effect in 2005 in Aceh, a predominantly Muslim region on the northernmost tip of Sumatra. But it only applied to Muslims.
  In the months following the tsunami in December 2004, the Aceh government had begun vigorously enforcing a three-year-old provincial statute on Shariah. Human rights groups have expressed concern.
  Alyasa Abubakar, head of the relevant local government office, declared recently: "Based on equality in law, Acehnese people have formally proposed ... to apply the Islamic Shariah Law to all those residing in Aceh, including military, police and non-Muslims."
  The provincial Islamic law department has called a further crackdown on 'immorality' - alcohol, gambling, women appearing in public without headscarves or venturing out at night without a male escort.
  Recently a young Acehnese woman was allegedly publicly flogged for kissing her boyfriend in public, while another 23-year-old has been locked up in Acehnese jail for more than two weeks without access to an attorney after being caught drinking beer.
  Shariah police are said to have barged into the lobby of a leading Banda Aceh hotel to arrest three women attending an international conference because they were not wearing headscarves.

The terrifying nightmare of Shariah, the Muslim system of law based on Koranic principles is not confined to questions of morality, but includes every aspect of life, from conception to grave. Intolerant and repressive, Shariah is responsible for the inequalities that are prevalent in the Muslim world. For non-Muslims, the condition of inequality is yet more terrible, with restrictions and humiliations that are incompatible with our notion of freedom in the West.

Naturally with the spread of Islam, Shariah is on the rise around the world, baggage that observant Muslims carry with them. (To be observant means to follow the law.) However, imposition of Shariah on non-Muslims is unacceptable, but inexplicably non-Muslims allow themselves to be harassed and exploited under this odious system.

Unfortunately the lesson of history is that Shariah eventually becomes the norm wherever Muslims settle. Thus, allowing Muslims among non-Muslims is cultural suicide and.... is INSANE!!!

Farmers' Markets - "The Idea that shook the world"

2006-05-28T04:11:00.000-07:00

Today, farmers markets seem to be everywhere — there were almost 500 in the state last year, more than 80 of them in Los Angeles County. And although the farmers market movement is closely identified with California, it has exploded into a national phenomenon. There were more than 3,700 farmers markets in the United States in 2004, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more than double only a decade before.

Who would have dreamed such a thing could come from what started out as four farmers in a church parking lot?

"This whole thing started with a small idea, but it put into motion something that turned out to be much bigger when others heard about it," says Ida Edwards. She and her husband, Leroy, were customers that first weekend; now they manage this market and another one at Adams Boulevard and Vermont Avenue — and they even do some farming themselves, raising aloe vera that they turn into soaps and lotions to sell at the markets.

To appreciate what the movement has accomplished, you have to look below the surface of what's going on at the Gardena market now. That stand with the bags of cute little citrus? That's Friend's Ranches from Ojai, and those Pixie tangerines are similar to the ones served at Chez Panisse in Berkeley. That stand over there with the great-looking strawberries and mixed vegetables? That's Tamai Farms from Oxnard and right across is Ha's Apple Farm from Tehachapi — their produce is served in some of California's finest restaurants.

Even more to the point: that funny-looking money that so many customers are using to pay? That's scrip for federal and state anti-hunger programs and accounts for as much as half of the market's sales.

From at one time not having access to fresh produce, low-income customers at the Gardena market — and many other small markets — now can get the same ingredients as are used by some of the best chefs in the country.

That is surely well beyond the dreams of even the most optimistic of the markets' founders. The first five farmers markets in Southern California were sponsored by the Interfaith Hunger Coalition, a project of the Southern California Ecumenical Council, with the simple idea of bringing fresh food to the poor.

"We were really addressing questions of food access, because at that time some of the supermarkets had fled the inner city," says Vance Corum, who organized the first half a dozen successful markets in Southern California. "At the same time, we were also very aware of the plight of farmers. That was the start of the tough times in the farm economy around the country. Things were tight."

Read it all.

This article features a market located in Southern California, but there are thousands all over the United States:

More resources and an interactive map.

"The Celluloid Time Capsule"

2006-05-28T03:58:00.000-07:00

The hippie-burnout drama "Cisco Pike" is a movie in which the optimism of the 1960s slips into the disappointing loneliness that Los Angeles can cultivate like no other city.

It is a cruel irony, then, that the 1972 film sank without a trace upon its release, so concerned is its hero's need for recognition and reward. Although both a Marvel Comics character and a Chicago indie-rock band have taken the name Cisco Pike, the film— despite unforgettable performances by Kris Kristofferson in the title role, Gene Hackman, Karen Black and Harry Dean Stanton—has never had enough exposure to become known even as a cult classic.

It struggled for its audience from the beginning: Bill L. Norton, a 27-year-old filmmaker, first pitched the story (original title: "Dealer") in 1969 to Columbia exec Gerald Ayres, who then left the studio to produce it. After countless rewrites and last-minute cast changes, the film was shot on location (for less than $800,000, with the smallest Hollywood crew Columbia had ever used) in late 1970 and early 1971. And then . . . nothing.

While Columbia sat on the picture, Gene Hackman's star-making turn in "The French Connection" was filmed and released to theaters, and magazines such as Seventeen went ahead and published what were supposed to be tie-in profiles of Kristofferson. It was released to one theater in Los Angeles, where it played for several weeks before closing. Norton couldn't get work as a director until "More American Graffiti" in 1979. In the '80s, the late Z Channel head Jerry Harvey, who had resuscitated interest in other mishandled releases such as "Heaven's Gate" and "Once Upon a Time in America," was unable to persuade Columbia to license the rights for broadcast. Never officially available on VHS, "Cisco Pike" has nonetheless circulated on bootleg videotapes, and has occasionally surfaced in various "great lost films" series at revival theaters.

It was finally released on DVD this year to little fanfare—so little that Norton didn't know of the release until I contacted him. In a final indignity, the packaging was adorned with this supremely backhanded compliment from critic Leonard Maltin: "Surprisingly Good."

But "Cisco Pike" is much more than that: It belongs in a pantheon of films—along with "Sunset Boulevard," "Mi Vida Loca" and "Valley Girl"—that have managed to capture in-the-moment pieces of the L.A. landscape that are no more.

Read the rest.

Food for Thought - "Borders Aren't About Maps"

2006-05-28T03:45:00.000-07:00

by Moisés Naîm

A country's borders should not be confused with those familiar dotted lines drawn on some musty old map of nation-states. In an era of mass migration, globalization and instant communication, a map reflecting the world's true boundaries would be a crosscutting, high-tech and multidimensional affair.

Where is the real U.S. border, for example, when U.S. customs agents check containers in the port of Amsterdam? Where should national borders be marked when drug traffickers launder money through illegal financial transactions that crisscross the globe electronically, violating multiple jurisdictions? How would border checkpoints help record companies that discover pirated copies of their latest offering for sale in cyberspace -- long before the legitimate product even reaches stores? And when U.S. health officials fan out across Asia seeking to contain a disease outbreak, where do national lines truly lie?

Governments and citizens are used to thinking of a border as a real, physical place: a fence, a shoreline, a desert or a mountain pass. But while geography still matters, today's borders are being redefined and redrawn in unexpected ways. They are fluid, constantly remade by technology, new laws and institutions, and the realities of international commerce -- illicit as well as legitimate. They are also increasingly intangible, living in a virtual and electronic space.

In this world, the United States is adjacent not just to Mexico and Canada but also to China and Bolivia. Italy now borders on Nigeria, and France on Mali.

These borders cannot be protected with motion sensors or National Guard troops.

Political unions, economic reforms and breakthroughs in technology and business came together to revolutionize the world's borders during the 1990s.

It was a decade during which a global passion for free markets erupted. From Latin America to Eastern Europe, politicians and their electorates felt that prosperity was possible by enticing foreigners to invest, tourists to visit, traders to import and export, banks to move funds freely in and out of countries, and businesses to operate free of heavy regulations.

It was also a decade when nations with long histories of conflict or animosity surprised the world by dismantling or rearranging their borders through political unions and trade agreements. The European Union kicked into high gear; Argentina, Brazil and rival South American nations formed a regional customs union; and Mexico joined Canada and the United States in their own trade agreement. These efforts sought to maximize economic growth and political harmony (or so the leaders hoped).

Meanwhile, new technologies were vastly reducing the economic and business importance of distance and geography. The only prices that dropped faster than shipping a cargo container from Shanghai to Los Angeles were those for sending e-mail, making phone calls, or rapid-firing text and images across borders.

With borders much more fluid, opportunities for profit multiplied and cross-border activity boomed. Suddenly it seemed normal to invest in Thailand, visit China, trade in exotic currencies, take seasonal jobs in different countries or download stolen software from Bulgarian Web sites.

Even something as simple as buying a counterfeit Prada handbag on the streets of Manhattan or Washington represented the final step in a long journey of border crossings. The bag's original design -- probably acquired or stolen in Europe -- was transported electronically or physically to China. There, the leather, zippers, belts and buckles were procured and assembled into tens of thousands of counterfeit handbags. The finished products were then smuggled onto containers officially carrying, say, industrial valves, to ports such as Naples or New York.

Once the handbags reached these final markets, street merchants took over -- often African immigrants who themselves were smuggled across borders by human-trafficking networks. Yes, the poorly paid street vendors are usually as illegal as the goods they're peddling. Meanwhile, the overall counterfeit enterprise reaped enormous cash profits that were converted into bank deposits and laundered across the globe electronically, again trespassing across multiple borders.

These changes reflected a severe and acute new asymmetry: Borders became harder for governments to control, and easier and more lucrative for violators to bypass. Anyone seeking to cross them found it easier to do so, while government agencies floundered in their efforts to regulate the new world they had helped create.

Today's borders are violated, enforced and remade not only on the ground but also in cyberspace, multilateral agencies and the virtual world of international finance.

Consider the most mundane of examples: the ATM machine. When an immigrant living in the United States sends her ATM card to her children in the Philippines and they draw money from her U.S. checking account, where has the transaction taken place? Did the kids cross a border to tap the funds from an American bank? In a sense, they did -- the ubiquitous ATM has become a powerful, easy-to-use, border-crossing tool. Often, such crossings are perfectly legal. But not always.

National boundaries are also being transformed by new -- or newly empowered -- international institutions. For example, when the World Trade Organization's 149 member states agree on the reduction of tariff rates around the globe, our time-honored beliefs about controlling sovereign borders are upended. On trade, the borders that matter may be drawn at the WTO headquarters in Geneva as much as anywhere else.

The fluid, unpredictable nature of modern borders is evident even among the most geographically isolated and remote nations on earth. Try landlocked Bolivia and Afghanistan. Their rugged geography and poor roads make internal travel exceedingly difficult and time-consuming. Yet narco-traffickers regularly and swiftly connect Bolivia's remote Chapare region, where coca is cultivated, with Miami or New York, where cocaine is consumed (with a processing stopover in the jungles of Colombia and a transshipment detour to a deserted beach in Haiti). And in Afghanistan, opium traffickers seamlessly link the Deshu district in the lawless Helmand province with elegant consumers in London or Milan.

Even for experienced travelers, reaching Chapare or Deshu is a tough proposition. But location and geography now matter less and less for traffickers or for anyone seeking to violate national borders. In major cities across the globe, the availability of banned merchandise stands as a monument of sorts to nations' eroding sovereignty -- no matter the billions of dollars that governments spend seeking to keep such goods from reaching their shores and penetrating their borders.

In 2004, the Guardian published a dispatch from the banks of the Yalu River, on the border between China and North Korea. "Here and there shadowy figures can be seen on both sides of the misty river quietly carrying out an illegal -- but thriving -- trade in women, endangered species, food and consumer appliances," wrote Jonathan Watts.

If a paranoid police state such as North Korea is incapable of controlling its borders and deterring illicit trade, there seems to be little hope for open, democratic and technologically advanced nations seeking to uphold their sovereign borders. This issue gained urgency in the United States in particular after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when security concerns became paramount.

Yet the paradox of policing borders in a high-tech, globally integrated era is that today, less sovereignty may equal more protection. In order to reinforce national boundaries and combat terrorism, one of the most effective tools a government can deploy is collaboration with other nations -- in effect, ceding or "pooling" certain aspects of their sovereignty.

That is no easy task. It requires partnering with less efficient, less democratic and less trustworthy nations and sharing information, technology, intelligence and decision-making power. In many quarters -- Washington and beyond -- the notion of diluting national sovereignty verges on treason.

But if sovereignty is indeed a hallowed concept, it has become a somewhat hollow one, too. Traditional borders are violated daily by countless means, and virtual borders seem even more permeable and misunderstood. "Closing the border" may appeal to nationalist sentiments and to the human instinct of building moats and walls for protection. But when threats travel via fiber optics or inside migrating birds, and when finding ways to move illegal goods across borders promises unimaginable wealth or the only chance of a decent life, unilateral security measures have the unfortunate whiff of a Maginot line.

The immigration "problem" in the United States isn't about borders or free trade or sending cash to love ones around the world. The problem concerns sovereignty, mass migration, cultural imperatives, and too rapid changes without consultation: People want to make their own choices without having governments foisting progams, regulations...and people upon them.

Look at the Fence!

2006-05-27T18:35:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the Minuteman Project, we see here the first pictures of the fence being built by the private sector, on private land, with the cooperation of private landowners, with privately donated funds, on the US-Mexican border in Palominas, Arizona.

The little dog you see at the lower right may be the last living entity to cross without first asking permission of the rightful property owner.

One caller to the Rollye James show stated that his attempt to put up a fence failed, as it was torn down by the government. The property owner erected a fence on his own property, at his own expense, and government workers came and tore it down, stating that they did so because it interfered with migratory pathways.

Fortunately, the matter was taken to court, and the government's action was overruled.

The first version of the fence will stretch for 10 miles. The landowner has made some modifications to the original design, as he has cattle and can not deal with trenches, etc. So we (the Minuteman Project) will be building 10 miles of fortified fencing with rails, barbed wire, concertina wire and railroad ties for vehicle barriers. We do not have a graphic of this design requested by the landowner, but we will soon have pictures!

The first full security fencing of the original design ( see: Fence) will be up on a nearby landowner's property as soon as we can get the steel order placed and shipped.

At Last! A Break in the Clouds!

2006-05-27T17:28:00.000-07:00

There is hope on one front, folks, and if we can do this, it might give courage to enough people to protect our nation's security and sovereignty. If we can do that, maybe we can begin to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

Please email or call your Representatives - it's so important!

"Path to citizenship" Faces House Foes
By Charles Hurt
WASHINGTON TIMES May 25, 2006

Liberal House Republicans are taking an increasingly tough stance on immigration reform and are more determined than ever to delete the portions of the Senate bill that grant citizenship rights to more than 10 million illegal aliens."I don't want to see a bill come to the floor of the House that gives them a path to citizenship," said Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut, one of the most liberal Republicans in Congress.

This is a change from three weeks ago, before Mr. Shays attended 18 community meetings in his district, where the questions invariably turned to immigration. At the first meeting, he told a group of constituents that he supported providing a path to citizenship to illegals. Not anymore."There were real questions about that," Mr. Shays said yesterday. "There is not much tolerance for allowing people to become citizens who came here illegally."

It's the same reaction many House Republicans in moderate and liberal districts have had after hearing from angry constituents in recent weeks, said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, the former chairman of the House Republican Campaign Committee who can cite encyclopedic knowledge of congressional districts off the top of his head."It is the hottest issue out there," he said, referring to public reaction nationwide, including his own moderate district in Northern Virginia. "Everywhere I go, even the ethnic groups, everybody is talking about this."

It was with much uneasiness, Mr. Davis said, that he voted for the House's tough border-security bill last year. But since then, he said, he has been stunned by the overwhelming public support for the House approach to immigration reform. "Voters have no faith that the federal government will secure the borders and begin enforcing immigration laws," Mr. Davis said, "and they are outraged over the Senate's citizenship proposal. I have seen it out in my own district, which is a very wealthy, educated, thoughtful district," Mr. Davis said. His constituents "are not knee-jerk people," he said, but "have taken a look at this thing and are very, very tough on immigration right now. They want a tough bill."

U.N. Making Homeschooling Illegal?

2006-05-27T15:14:00.000-07:00

Homeschoolers listen up: "Threat seen from U.S. judges who bow to child-rights treaty.

A U.N. treaty conferring rights to children could make homeschooling illegal in the U.S. even though the Senate has not ratified it, a homeschooling association warns.

Michael Farris, chairman and general counsel of the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, or HSLDA, believes the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child could be binding on U.S. citizens because of activist judges, reports LifeSite News.

Farris said that according to a new interpretation of "customary international law," some U.S. judges have ruled the convention applies to American parents.

"In the 2002 case of Beharry v. Reno, one federal court said that even though the convention was never ratified, it still has an impact on American law," Farris explained, according to LifeSiteNews. "The fact that virtually every other nation in the world has adopted it has made it part of customary international law, and it means that it should be considered part of American jurisprudence."

The convention places severe limitations on a parent's right to direct and train their children, Farris contends.
The HSLDA produced a report in 1993 showing that under Article 13, parents could be subject to prosecution for any attempt to prevent their children from interacting with material they deem unacceptable.

Under Article 14, children are guaranteed "freedom of thought, conscience and religion," which suggests they have a legal right to object to all religious training. Further, under Article 15, the child has a right to "freedom of association."
"If this measure were to be taken seriously, parents could be prevented from forbidding their child to associate with people deemed to be objectionable companions," the HSLDA report explained.

Farris pointed out that in 1995 the United Kingdom was deemed out of compliance with the convention "because it allowed parents to remove their children from public school sex-education classes without consulting the child."

Farris argues, according to LifeSiteNews, that "by the same reasoning, parents would be denied the ability to homeschool their children unless the government first talked with their children and the government decided what was best. This committee would even have the right to determine what religious teaching, if any, served the child's best interest."
Offering solutions, Farris suggests Congress use its power to define customary law and modify the jurisdiction of federal courts.

"Congress needs to address this issue of judicial tyranny by enacting legislation that limits the definition of customary international law to include only provisions of treaties that Congress has ratified," he said.

Farris also suggested Congress could pass a constitutional amendment stating explicitly that no provision of any international agreement can supersede the constitutional rights of an American citizen.

He pointed out two such amendments have been proposed in Congress.

Finally, he says specific threats to parental rights can be solved by "putting a clear parents' rights amendment into the black and white text of the United States Constitution."

Remember that a goal of contemporary education is to create "world citizens" in the image mandated by social engineering. The education of children outside their influence and mandates is anathema.

Could Semantics Help Us Win the "War Against Terror"? 8 Achievable Goals

2006-05-27T14:29:00.000-07:00

"Ignorance always accompanies tragedy. "

Muslims, after decades-long studying on the principles of Western Democracy, are using these against us. Baffled Westerners are at a loss as to how to effectively counter this trend. If we are smart, we can use the same strategies to the turn the tables on them: use islamic history and semantics to own ends.

Things have not been going well in our "War on Terror" which then became known in some circles as the War Against Islamic Jihad. According to J.R. Dunn at The American Thinker, a more precise denomination, referring to what could be common ground in Muslim history, could rally the Umma, the universal brotherhood of Muslims, to our cause. The West has made progress because, out of our ignorance of Islam and Islamic history, the Ummah can't understand us as our cause has no context nor common vocabulary to which they can relate. They need our help, but first we must educate ourselves. Beyond that, how can we help them, and in turn, allow them to help us?

The Umma Needs Our Help in Modernizing

The first is that they simply don’t have the resources. The Muslim intelligentsia, which is the sole reservoir of opinion leadership that can be placed in opposition to dictatorial governments and throwback preachers, is extremely small – too small even to refer to as a class. Many Muslim intellectuals are living in authoritarian states or worse, subject to harassment, arrest, and assassination by their governments or by terror groups themselves. (As nearly occurred to Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt’s master novelist and Nobel laureate, whose acceptance of the prize so infuriated a local neanderthal that Mahfouz – nearing eighty at the time – was stabbed in the back while walking the streets of his own neighborhood.) Many of these intellectuals are sympathetic to the West (they after all share many of our ideals), but we can’t expect a few thousand out of a polity of one billion to take up that kind of a burden.

A second reason is that the Islamic media is, in almost all cases, controlled by government and acting as mouthpieces for the established order. (Al-Jazeera is only a partial exception.) No open debate is possible under these circumstances; no information contrary to the status quo will make it past the censors. Alternatives are in the process of creation, as we have seen with the establishment of blogging in liberated Iraq. But the infowave has only recently struck the Islamic world, and the establishment of an alternative Net culture will require time.

And third: to be frank, many of the Islamic umma remain in a medieval or even tribal mindset. Except for political and business elites, a majority are separated from the soil by one generation at best. They are still living with ancient concepts, attitudes, and beliefs. They are uncertain about modernity, and to some extent fearful of it. They are bewildered by things that we take as a matter of course. Often enough, that bewilderment is expressed as hostility.

None of this means that they are inferior or incapable. It means they are inexperienced, and require guidance from those who have gone before them. That guidance must come from us. By “us”, I mean, of course, the United States and other members of the Anglosphere; nobody else cares, and in point of fact, it’s unlikely that the Muslim people would pay much attention to them if they did.

A final complication is mutual incomprehension. It would be surprising if this weren’t the case. Islam and the West are, after all, different civilizations, with differing histories, worldviews, and values. Separate paths result in separate products.

"What is required of us is an effort to pinpoint ideas and concepts within Muslim culture and history that can act as points of commonality between the West and Islam, anchor points for bridges between the two civilizations..."

Dunn suggests that we focus on the kharijites who were the first sect to bring schism into the new Islamic community.

They began as followers of Ali ibn Abi Talib, grandson of the Prophet, who became the fourth caliph in 657 after the assassination of Caliph Uthman.

Ali was immediately challenged by the governor of Syria, who refused to pledge his fealty. (Early Islamic history is a parade of one succession crisis after another.) By all accounts one of the most reasonable men of his time, Ali agreed to subject the matter to arbitration.

This set the Kharijites, who consisted of members of three tribes, ablaze. Ali, in their opinion, had been selected by no less than Allah, and in putting the divine choice up to human arbitration was committing a gross and unforgivable sin. Pulling up stakes, the tribes headed toward Kufa, south of Baghdad, in the process earning themselves their name.

Ali pursued them, first to remonstrate, and then, when that failed, to bring them to battle. The Kharijites were defeated, with many killed. Some of the remnant returned to Ali, but the hard core retreated across the Tigris. Ali let them go, assuming that they’d been taught their lesson and would be no further problem.

He was mistaken. In 661 he was assassinated, by a Kharijite. The Kharijites possessed a straightforward and easily-grasped theology: Anyone who wasnot a Kharijite was an unbeliever, and all unbelievers should be killed.

The Kharijites introduced a number of concepts and practices into Islam: the politicization of religion, the conviction that the earliest days of the caliphate marked a state of perfection against which all human society must be judged, the practice – called takfir—of anathemizing individuals and groups as heretics, the use of extreme methods, including the slaughter of entire families, against opponents – methods that we today would describe as “terrorism.”

For the next two centuries the Kharijites attempted to ensure the spread of this simple, invigorating faith by killing everyone who disagreed with them. They set up a series of independent theocratic states throughout the region, using them as operating bases to target the Ommayad holdings. They encouraged revolt, took over entire provinces and massacred those who refused conversion. They practiced a form of guerilla warfare, retreating onto the Iranian plateau when things went poorly only to burst out once again when opportunity beckoned. Their activities weakened the Ommayad caliphate so grievously as to guarantee the success of the Abbassid revolt. The Abbassids themselves required maximum effort to finally wipe out the Kharijites in the 9th century.

Although the Kharijites were destroyed, their influence lived on...

I would say that it lives on in fundamentalist movements and notions of superiority and intolerance against apostates and non-Muslims. It became the dark side of Islam.

There are some existing groups that are directly influenced by Kharijite beliefs: Takfir wa-l Hijra in Egypt, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in Algeria, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, as well as several North African Bedouin tribes.

Some contend that Kharijism is a component of all Islamic terrorism, "pointing out that Said Qutb, the inspiration of Osama bin-Laden and others, was well-read in Kharijite doctrine, [and that] The Wahhabis, with their fundamentalism, their eagarness to anathemize opponents, and their proselyte activities, [demonstrate] Kharijite tendencies."

What does this mean and how can we use it?

Muslims possess their own understanding of terrorism, derived from their own history and experience and based on their own principles. The Muslim view of terror, unsurprisingly, concentrates on the effect that it has on Islam and the Muslim community. The impact on the world beyond in strictly secondary.

But the crucial point is that the Muslim’s Kharijite is the same as the Jihadi, the Jihadi the same as a Kharijite. For all practical purposes, they are identical. There is not an iota of difference between the two.

Here is our bridge.

By adapting and by calling our fight the "War on Kharijism" , we will achieve several things:

1) The West can undermine Jihadi attempts to portray the War on Terror as a clash of civilizations or a campaign against Islam, definite turn off for the billion-member Ummah.

2) It would define clearly and unambigously what were are fighting against and why.

3) It would increase chances of gaining understanding and support form the Muslim Ummah.

4) It will put in historical context the large mass of proganda by the Jihadis...as the behavior not of heroic rebels or defenders of Islam, but of deadly misfits well-known to Muslim history.

5) Adapting the concept would assure Muslims that we're talking about the same thing and fighting the same battle, giving the Muslim masses an enemy they can understand.

6) It would go a long way toward explaining our own actions as simply a response against Kharijism, which has spilled over into our territory.

7) It would enable Middle Eastern governments, often pilloried for allying themselves with the U.S., to lay claim to the high ground of defending accepted Islamic practice.

8) The West would be able to develop means of prophylaxis to combat and prevent the development of these movements.

How can we achieve our goal without further alienating a fifth of the world's population?

1) We must educate ourselves by learning how such movements grow and develop; their methods and tactics, their effect on the Muslim Umma as a whole, and their weakness and how they are destroyed.

2) Use the concepts and rituals of Islam about Kharjite as a gate into Muslim thought and behavior. In other words, talk to them using language and concepts they can understand, a common-sense approach.

3) Reminding some Muslim regimes that they owe more than one honor debt - Muslims in Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and now Iraq, under Islamic principles should be beholden in a debt that is "sacred even when involving a Nezerin, (that is, a Christian).

4) The People of the Book - The Koran is clear that Jews and Christians, as People of the Book, are believers and must be respected as such, a reminder than many continue to ignore, or of which need to be reminded that feelings of "hostility and superiority" must be put aside as a religious obligation.

5) A revival of the Mutazilite School of Islam.

The Mutazilites were a rationalist movement that appeared in Islam in the wake of the Kharijites. Based on Greek philosophical sources (with much reference to Aristotle), they believed in a reasoned analysis of all aspects of religion and society. They died out early, overwhelmed by the traditionalist Ashariteschool. But the movement has experienced a revival in the past century, in response to Islam’s confrontation with modernity.

Since much of the difficulties afflicting Islam today arise from that very conflict, it would appear that a school of thought like Mutazila would be a high-value proposition. Like everyone else, Muslims will not adapt to modernity except on their own terms. Some idea of what those terms comprise could very well be found in Mutazila.

6) Americans must overcome their traditional ignorance of other cultures which, to our detriment, has "been the hallmark of American engagements". An example is seen in the closing events of WWII in the Pacific.

Failing to grasp what "unconditional surrender" meant to the Japanese, the phrase was uttered offhand by FDR, much in the same way that President Bush used the term "crusaders" in his speech. These loaded terms have caused resentment and heightened hostility. "To Japanese thinkng, [unconditional surrender] meant subjecting the Emperor, the divine presence on this earth, to criminal prosecution and the possibility of death. They could not allow this, as they proved with their blood at places like Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

Ignorance can be no excuse as our very existence depends on smart thinking as well as on a show of force.

Read it all.

Another Senate Sellout of Sovereignty

2006-05-27T13:57:00.000-07:00

Yup - it's true, all true; our country is being sold off at a bargain basement price to our Neighbors south of the border! It's the kind of thing that gives the name "New Mexico" a whole new meaning!

Here it is, folks, a last minute addition to the Senate Amnesty Bill, thanks to Senator Dodd:

S.Amdt.4089 contains the following language:

(b) CONSULTATION REQUIREMENT

"Consultations between United States and Mexican authorities at the federal, state, and local levels concerning the construction of additional fencing and related border security structures along the United States-Mexico border shall be undertaken prior to commencing any new construction, in order to solicit the views of affected communities, lessen tensions and foster greater understanding and stronger cooperation on this and other important issues of mutual concern."

Ok, people, the House is our last chance. Don't give up, keep on nagging. Go let your Representatives know what you think.

Some Mexican migrants turning to bicycles

2006-05-27T10:50:00.000-07:00

Many migrants are skipping the use of unreliable and perfidious "coyotes", smugglers and are hiking through the desert. And new trend is the use of old bicycles that will soon be abandoned. The trip is not for the faint of heart, and most don't fall in the faint-of-heart category.

The 110-degree heat and rough terrain of the Arizona desert would exhaust the fittest of cyclists, but these migrants are often middle-aged housewives or farmers, riding battered second-hand bikes for 30 or 40 miles.
The bikes also carry their supplies and belongings, so if rocks or cactus spines shred the tires, they get off and push.
The prize? A chance at a low-wage job.

"We've seen them going by on bicycles right by our offices ... in whole groups," said Mario Lopez, an agent for Mexico's Grupo Beta migrant aid agency, whose offices sit just a few hundred yards from the border. "They're usually old bikes because they're going to abandon them anyway."

Most start their trip in Sonoyta, a Mexican border town where the bikes are sold for $30 in a dusty, vacant lot a few blocks from the chest-high, three-rail fence that marks the U.S. border. The fence has prevented vehicles from driving across into the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, but migrants can easily toss a bike over and slip through the rails.
From there, it's a brutal ride over Organ Pipe's hard-packed terrain. Though the park prohibits off-road biking, sets of fresh mountain-bike tracks can be seen running down its foot trails, and the National Park Service often finds abandoned bikes with crumpled wheels and water bottles hanging off the handlebars.

Fred Patton, the park's chief ranger, says "hundreds and hundreds and hundreds" of migrants bike through the park. No count is kept and he can't be precise, but he provides pictures of abandoned bikes. "It's a relatively common means of transport," he said.

Read the rest.

They sound like tough, enterprising risk takers, just the kind of people America needs. The problem is that we can't absorb ten to twenty million at one time or over one or two decades.

It's seems really sad that the Mexico under-utilitizes in Mexico their most valuable asset in: people. My guess is that sending them over in a demographic hoard is exactly the business plan conceived by the smart, tough, and ruthless Mexicans that have never forgotten the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe and the lessons learned by allowing Yankee entrepreneurs to settle Americans in their northern territory, resulting in the Texas Rebellion and the subsequent Mexican American War.

One large difference between then and now is that American settlement was legal. Mexico granted large tracts of land to men like Steven Austin with the proviso that settlers would become good Mexicans by obeying all laws, becoming Catholics, and learning to Speak Spanish. Just like today's migrants, the 19th century variety that moved into what is known as the American Southwest took exception and did not comply. They preferred their native English language, their Protestant religion, and the "peculiar institution of slavery" that was illegal in Mexico. Enforcement of these and other infractions of Mexican law compelled the dictator, Santa Ana, to march against them, with a humiliating defeat, and a transfer of territory after payment. And the rest is history.

A new history is being written and there are new questions to be asked and answered in a relatively short period. Soon enough we will find out of which country or union we are citizens, and which language will be lingua franca of North America.

Will our capital remain in Washington D.C. or moved to a more "convenient" location? Will we continue to have an elected legislature or will we be ruled by an oligarchy? (Are we being ruled by an oligarchy now? Sometimes its hard to tell.) Will a minority of the equivalent of 3 or 4% of our present population be tough enough to take us over? Old-line Europeans are having a similar and growing problem with their migrant populations. It appears that America's migrant minorities are taking their cues from the rapidly-expanding and vocal Muslim minority population that varies from about .5% to 8% .

It's hard to believe what problems a tiny, unassimable minority can cause.

"The United Nations in Your Wallet"

2006-05-27T10:25:00.000-07:00

The United Nations is salivating at the prospect of tapping the wallets of developed nations through taxes or surcharges on anything that "globalized": commerce, use of the internet, and now airline tickets.

Sally McNamara, Director of International Relations at the American Legislative Council, reports at Townhall:

In spite of some pretty torrid scandals in recent years, the United Nations (U.N.) is far from finished. In fact, Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the U.N., is leading the gambit for perhaps its biggest power-grab yet – independent tax-raising powers or globo-taxation.

In fact, the U.N. is deeply committed to establishing this ‘sovereign’ power for itself – independent of the scrutiny and direction of its large aid donors (namely the United States). It wraps this concept up in the intentionally boring globo-speak of ‘enhanced dialogues on tax co-operation’ and ‘new innovative funding mechanisms,’ but that is just intended to put a pretty bow on top of a very ugly concept – the removal of the exclusive sovereign power of nation states to levy taxes on its citizenry.

Cliff Kincaid, President of America’s Survival, Inc., has just published a devastating chronology of the U.N.’s sustained campaign for global taxes, noting the 2001 High Level Panel on Financing for Development as a turning-point in the debate. Not only did that meeting call for the establishment of an International Tax Organization, it blatantly outlined two major areas where globotaxation might easily be levied – a currency transactions tax and a carbon tax – both of which would disproportionately hit the U.S.

Since then, a succession of high-level meetings, summits and conferences have been busy gathering steam for this concept: the Millennium Development Goals, the 2005 World Economic and Social Survey, the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the World Commission Report on the Social Dimension of Globalization and so on and so on; they all share this notion that globotaxation is the most ‘innovative’ solution to long-term funding for the U.N. They propose globotaxes on everything from air transportation to aviation fuel, from airline tickets to carbon emissions, from currency transactions to arms. The list is as ambitious as it is scary. The long arm of the U.N.’s IRS could be in your pocket soon.

One of the U.N.’s more fruitful attempts at global taxation is the formal plan to levy a tax on airline tickets. In November 2005, Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, and Spain issued a joint statement calling for a ‘nationally applied, internationally coordinated’ tax to be levied on air transport travels. The French government has been the first one to bite the bullet, and from July onward, passengers will pay between one and 40 euros on all flights taking off in France. With enthusiastic U.N. support and much back-slapping for President Chirac, Chile has undertaken plans to do the same, with Belgium and Germany currently hovering in the wings to do so. Luckily, both Great Britain and the U.S. have resisted Mr. Annan’s calls for others to follow suit. But make no mistake: the rot has started. Britain’s Liberal Democrats are openly advocating for taxation on aviation fuel as a way of reducing climate change, and with the current spin-over-substance streak running through the Conservative Party, anything is possible from our normally reliable British partners.

Of course, France’s projected annual revenue of $248 million is not nearly enough for the U.N.’s aspirations and the finger-pointing – largely toward to U.S. – is really gathering steam now. Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, special adviser to Secretary General Annan on the Millennium Development Goals, has gone as far as to say that the U.S. is coming up short in its global aid commitments to the tune of $65 billion a year. Of course, Dr. Sachs is a vocal proponent of globo-taxation to make up the difference. At the 2002 International Conference on Financing for Development, Dr. Sachs helpfully points out that: “A global tax on carbon-emitting fossil fuels might be the way to begin”.

The undercurrent of this debate should not be ignored – any global tax will not be a tax on income, at least not at first; there wouldf be riots in the streets if that happened. Any global tax will stealthy enacted and will have to be far-removed from the scrutiny of ordinary taxpayers. So, what better way to circumvent the problem than to tax corporate America, especially the energy companies who both the U.N. and the European Union have been collectively obsessed with since President Bush refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Feeding on media hysteria about imminent global disaster and excessive corporate profits, the proposition seems easier and easier to sell from a public relations perspective.

There is maybe a glimmer of hope though. John Bolton, the ever-sensible U.S. ambassador to the U.N., has flat-out said that the United States accepts neither global aid targets nor global taxes, and President Bush has backed him. But it cannot always be assumed that the White House will be this sensible. Indeed, Bill Clinton told the Millennium Summit in 2000 that national sovereignty needed to be put aside for the sake of a more active U.N.. And for activism you can read – more of the same, with a tax raising platform to boot.

I would never vote for this, and it seems that cavalier politicians play over the heads of the American people.

"Fox Thanks Bush for Surrender"

2006-05-27T09:40:00.000-07:00

"Surrender", doublespeak for a done deal, a step on the way to the North American Union that the elites of Canada, Mexico, and the United States want.

Be sure to access the internal links in this blog report.

Why We Still Need Our Military

2006-05-27T08:14:00.000-07:00

Recently commissioners of San Francisco declared San Francisco a "military free zone." Anti-war protests again are happening on America's campuses, and calls to impeach Bush are on the rise because of our involvement in Iraq. Don't these people understand that the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union don't mean that America is in any less danger? Perhaps they need to reminded of the rise of other world threats:

China has been increasing spending on military equipment,expanding the size of their military force to include an enormous army and a deep-water navy that could challenge the United States in waters all over the world.

The concern is that U.S. interests in East Asia, the Straights of Malacca, and even in the Western Hemisphere, could be thwarted by Chinese businessmen backed up by their navy and expanding army.

Japan can't help but notice the rising threat by its neighbor, China, and is revising its constitution to allow them "broaden the government's ability to send forces overseas... [and] The revision also opens the door to a broader interpretation of the constitution, permitting what some call "collective self-defense" -- or coming to the military aid of other countries."

Russia, flush with oil wealth, again is making a resurgence, but not without international tension.

Relations between Washington and Moscow are at their lowest ebb in 10 years, and in his recent Address to the Federal Assembly -- equivalent to the State of the Union address -- Putin remarked that "far from everyone in the world has abandoned the old bloc mentality and the prejudices inherited from the era of global confrontation."  The speech as a whole was an intricate balance between the need to arrest Russia's internal societal decline -- one-third of the population, which is shrinking rapidly, lives in poverty -- and a desire to play an ever-greater role in world affairs. Moscow's involvement in the Iranian nuclear affair is a case in point. Its refusal to sanction serious Security Council measures against Tehran is a growing source of concern to the United States and Britain.

This newfound confidence has its basis in Russia's economic resurgence since the collapse of the rouble in 1998, the single largest cause of which is the high (and rising) price of oil...

Continued tensions betweenThe Koreas and between North Korea and the United States are matters of concern. Disturbances from Iran and its surrogates, such as Hamas and other Palestinian groups threaten and annoy Israel and the United States.

The is no let up "The War on Terror", the "War" in Iraq, and tensions and hostility in the Middle East. The rise in the price of oil and oil products cause by increased competition among nations for access in a crucial reason for keeping our military as our economy and lifestyle are based on oil.

South America is not tension free:

Populists movements in Venzuela, Bolivia, and Peru are worrisome, joining the ranks of Cuba and Brazil in a growing dissatisfaction with the U.S. As an example, Venezuela is actually teaming with Iran and has decided to buy war planes from Russia.

Mexico's upcoming elections could put a populist president in power. Nevertheless, relations with Mexico have been tense because of the strain over immigration, the border, and the legalization of many millions of Mexican migrants that are present in the United States, inducing the United States to post armed National Guardsmen close to the border.

The head of the U.S. National Guard surprised Border Patrol officials, declaring some of the troops he will send to assist them will work in close proximity to the border, be armed and allowed to fire their weapons if necessary.
"Any soldier assigned to a mission where he would be placed in harm or danger, where his life would be threatened potentially, will in fact be armed and will have the inherent right of self-protection," Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum told the San Antonio Express-News Thursday.

Federal troops are scheduled to begin deployment to the four states on the Mexican border next week once the Guard and the Defense Department approve the memorandum of understanding that will define the mission's parameters. The document will also require signatures from the border governors.

Representatives from the National Guard and the offices of the governors of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California have been meeting in Phoenix this week to craft an agreement on the use of force. The talks have focused on "harmonization" of the different states' laws on self-defense and the use of deadly force, said Texas National Guard commander Army Maj. Gen. Charles G. Rodriguez.

The rules of engagement "will be the same in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas," said Blum.

According to the current plan, the National Guard will conduct border securty operations for two years while the Border Patrol and U.S. Customs increase their numbers. The number of troops deployed at any given time would represent less than 2 percent of available Guard forces, none of which will be assigned from states likely to experience hurricanes this year.
While the Guard will assist with many support functions – conducting aerial surveillance and reconnaissance, building new roads and fences, providing intelligence and analysis to help track illegal crossings, transporting Border Patrol officers and detainees, and assisting with a number of logistics functions – some of their duties will put them in close proximity to the border and illegal crossers.

Troops stationed at vehicle inspection stations and engineers working along the border could be armed, said Blum, with M-16s, 9-mm handguns and shotguns.

"But we're not going to be carrying machine guns. We're not going to be carrying heavy weapons. We're not at war here," Blum said, adding he wants his troops "to be in a position to protect themselves."

Some folks seem to think that withdrawal into the territory of the United States would solve all America's problems. However, U.S. interests could not be protected without the use of the military and access oil and other necessary commodities would surely be denied, or be used as a weapon against us by hostile countries or groups such as al Qaeda.

The catalog listed above is only a small sampling of current and possible conflicts for which we a strong military.

FYI

2006-05-26T16:54:00.000-07:00

New article on The New Enlightenment: "TV's Season Past."

Mexico Gets Veto Power? "Consultation" Required?

2006-05-26T03:48:00.000-07:00

Michelle Malkin has pulled together a few links that should make your blood boil.

Here are some questions:

Since when does the American Congress kowtow to Mexico?

Why are our state and federal legislators and legislatures "consulting" a foreign power on any American policy?

Why are they more impressed by, and care more for the ideas and opinions of foreigners over their legitimate constituents, the American people.

Why are they putting the interets of the citizens of another nation ahead of those of the United States? Could it be that our two, or is it three, nations are already entwined...and we just know it?

Villaraigosa, Fox's emissary in the Los Angeles, weighs in:

The mayor stressed the importance of the region's economic ties with its southern neighbor. He said he intended to discuss trade and tourism with Fox on Friday and avoid the contentious immigration debate, which is a federal issue.

At the same time, he acknowledged a federal border crackdown involving thousands of uniformed troops and new barriers could hinder, rather than help, his attempts to expand business with the city's southern trading partner.
Mexico sends more tourists to Los Angeles than any other country an estimated 1.5 million in 2005. Trade between Mexico and the Los Angeles region totaled $25 billion last year, which supported an estimated 42,000 jobs in Los Angeles County, the mayor said.

"We gain more by embracing the world, rather than turning our backs on it," the mayor said. "By working toward the mutual benefits of increased trade and foreign investment, we've taken steps beyond enforcing laws and building walls to address the flow of immigrants."

Improved business ties, he said, "will ultimately work to reduce the underlying economic factors that push people away from Mexico and toward the United States."

As mayor of an ethnically diverse city and the son of a Mexican immigrant Villaraigosa has spoken sympathetically of those "who clean hotel rooms, who sweep the floors, who watch our children." At the same time, he has also called for secure borders and the enforcement of immigration law.

As he has in the past, he urged Congress to forge a compromise that "holds people accountable for breaking the law, but also provides a pathway for citizenship for the 12 million people who are currently living and working here."
Fox has faced criticism for a U.S. visit that overlapped with the congressional debate. But the mayor said the timing was not inappropriate.

Antonio...weren't you elected by American citizens, and, upon inauguration, didn't you swear to uphold the Constitution? But he's no better or worse than other American politicians...at every level.

Check out this post at "A Certain Slant of Light."

Immigration Proposals...So Far

2006-05-26T03:29:00.000-07:00

Here is a comparison chart comparing the various bills and "hurdles to overcome in conference."

A tidal wave is sweeping over us...for the sake of the North American Union and the New World Order! Why else would subsequent administrations look the other way, tie the hands of the Border Patrol and continuously extol the virtues of immigrants over the interests of legitimate citizens?

Check out this post from "A Certain Slant of Light.

A Dollar Bubble?

2006-05-26T02:58:00.000-07:00

"Soaring Commodity Prices Point Toward Dollar Devaluation"

A very troubling report:

The astonishing rally of commodity prices during the past 12 months has taken most analysts, economists and investors by surprise. Rather than a dramatic change in the relationship between supply and demand for the underlying commodity, surging commodity prices have been driven by the devaluation of the preeminent marker of international commodity values -- the U.S. dollar. In the months ahead, the dollar's devaluation will increasingly register against other major currencies. Rapidly deteriorating U.S. economic fundamentals, questionable policy at the Federal Reserve, increasing political instability and extreme global geopolitical instability may trigger significant foreign capital flight from the United States.
  Brief History of Commodity Prices
  In late 2005, the Commodity Research Bureau's broad commodity price index, known as the C.R.B. Index, quietly surpassed record high levels set in the early 1980s. By the third week of May 2006, the C.R.B. Index gained another 12 percent. Behind this year's rise in the C.R.B. Index have been unprecedented price rallies of individual commodities. In the first five months of 2006, crude oil prices have increased by a mere 14 percent followed by gains in corn and wheat of about 10 percent. Price gains for other commodities have far outpaced the gains of oil and grains.
  Zinc prices have doubled in the past five months, copper prices are up 80 percent, silver has risen by 60 percent and palladium, tin, gold, aluminum and platinum have gained 50 percent, 40 percent, 39 percent, 36 percent and 35 percent, respectively. Prices for other commodities including lead, iron and scrap iron have followed a similar path this year. While these commodities have vastly varied uses from industrial to food production, they all have one common feature -- they are denominated and traded internationally in U.S. dollars.
  It is a dubious notion that global economic growth has suddenly reached a point where worldwide demand has overwhelmingly and simultaneously outstripped worldwide supply of all these commodities. In 2005, real global economic growth slowed to about 3.2 percent from nearly four percent in 2004. Slower global economic growth was led by slower real economic growth in the United States, which decelerated to 3.5 percent in 2005 from 4.2 percent in 2004. Global demand for commodities was actually declining, as prices for these commodities began to gallop higher in 2005.
  Falling Commodity Value of the Dollar
  While U.S. and global real economic growth accelerated in the first quarter of 2006, this acceleration was hardly sufficient to be behind the further rise of commodity prices in the first five months of this year. Rather than demand pushing the value of commodities higher in the past 18 months, it has been the dollar's devaluation against commodities that has pushed commodity prices to record highs. In other words, it is not zinc, copper and silver prices that are gaining; it is the value of the dollar that is declining against these commodities.
  The devaluation of the dollar against the world's major commodities is being driven by the exceptional growth in the world's supply of dollars during the past two years. Growth in the world's supply of dollars has come from two primary sources: rising international oil prices and the very large and growing U.S. trade deficit.
  Rising international oil prices during the past two years have dramatically increased global demand for and supply of dollars, which are used to buy crude oil. These dollars end up in the hands of the world's crude oil producers, who have invested some of this windfall in U.S. Treasury, agency and corporate bonds. Similarly, the U.S. trade deficit has lavished dollars on many countries that produce exports bound for the United States during the past two years. Again, most of this windfall has been invested in U.S. Treasury, agency and corporate bonds.
  To get an idea of the magnitude of growth in the world's supply of dollars during the past two years, one must calculate the dollar value of rising crude oil prices and add to this the size of the U.S. trade deficit. In 2004, global demand for crude oil grew by about four percent. Higher oil prices, which advanced by 34 percent, and demand for oil combined to increase the world's dollar supply by about $330 billion. In 2005, international crude oil prices gained another 35 percent and global demand for oil grew by only 1.6 percent. Nonetheless, the world's supply of dollars increased by a further $460 billion.
  The U.S. trade deficit was $666 billion in 2004 and $782 billion in 2005. Thus, in 2004 the world's supply of dollars grew by over $1 trillion, which was overshadowed in 2005 when the supply of dollars grew by a further $1.2 trillion. Adjusting these figures downward for double counting the portion of the U.S. trade deficit linked to crude oil imports still leaves the average annual growth of the world's supply of dollars in excess of $1 trillion per year in 2004 and 2005. According to data from the U.S. Treasury, foreigners invested about $900 billion in U.S. securities in both 2004 and 2005. At the end of 2005, foreigners held about $4 trillion worth of U.S. debt securities and about $2 trillion worth of U.S. equities.

  Of course, the world's supply of dollars has also been pushed higher during the past two years by rising prices of other dollar-denominated commodities such as zinc, copper silver, palladium, and tin, among others. Although most of the increase in the world's supply of dollars since 2004 has been reabsorbed into U.S. bonds and equities, as much as $600 billion remains outside of U.S. asset markets. Some of this money has undoubtedly found its way into the asset markets of other countries. Most of it, however, has been parked in alternative investments such as commodities. Rather than a bubble in commodity prices, as at least one prominent economist has asserted, recent commodity price action is indicative of a growing bubble in the world's supply of dollars.

Read the rest.